Homecoming
by Kaen Okami
Summary: Making it out of Beacon alive turned out to be the easy part of the whole disaster. Returning home in agony and shame, learning how to take the first steps forward into living in this newly broken state...That, Cinder has decided, is definitely going to be the hard part.
1. Stay Alive

" _These violent delights have violent ends_

 _And in their triumph die, like fire and powder."_

 _\- Romeo and Juliet,_ Act 2, Scene 6.

~0~

It wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't. Regardless of what happened to Beacon, the three of them were supposed to make a clean getaway, to run from this war zone free and unscathed.

Emerald hadn't anticipated this ending at all. She had been pacing on the rooftop behind Mercury, just waiting and hoping for the command that would bring this whole thing to a close. Now that she had no further role in this plan to focus on, there was nothing to take her mind off the chaos they'd unleashed, and it was making her stomach turn to watch it all.

Noticing her discomfort, Mercury smirked. "Hey, Emerald, how do you like this? I've never seen a snuff film before, but I think I'm doing okay for my first time making one, right?"

Emerald narrowed her eyes. "It's not like it's _hard."_

"Exactly. This is nothing. So just relax and enjoy the show."

She sighed, and turned to look away from the massacre below them to the tower above, to the Grimm Dragon growling and twisting in the air, to the flashes of fiery red and orange she could see every so often near the very top of the tower.

 _Cinder..._

"Who do you think she's fighting?" she asked softly, thinking out loud. "Should...Should we go back her up?"

Mercury just laughed. "Nah. She's got this. Besides, she told us to stay here and - "

But at that exact moment, there was a loud rush of air like a hurricane's wind from above them, and they both turned around just in time to be momentarily blinded by overwhelming white light.

"Agh, what the hell?!" Mercury bellowed, holding his arms up to shield his eyes from the light washing over them, while Emerald, despite her own eyes stinging and watering, tried to see through it. She couldn't be sure, but it seemed like the light had a form...A moving form? It looked like...Wings? Giant silver wings?

After a few moments that seemed to stretch on for much longer, the light slowly dissipated, and at first, nothing seemed to have changed. But then Emerald noticed that the dragon had gone completely rigid, its body wound around the top of the tower like an oversized gargoyle on a castle wall. From here, she couldn't tell if the monster was alive or dead, but that wasn't the thought that made her stomach drop.

 _If that huge Grimm was stopped by that light...Then...!_

"Cinder could be in trouble!" Emerald shouted, already sprinting for the edge of the roof. "I don't care if you want to stay, but I'm going!"

" _Relax,_ I'm coming too," Mercury said, stuffing his scroll into his jacket and following behind her. "Broadcast until the end, she said? Well, our big guns dragon getting taken out sure feels like the end to me, so I figure we'd be pulling out soon anyway."

They jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and hit the ground running for the tower from the last one. "Do you think that anyone's still inside?" Mercury called. "Or that the elevator's still working?"

"There's no way, everything's destroyed! We'll have to climb!"

At that, Mercury almost tripped on a loose chunk of pavement. " _Climb?!_ Are you serious?!"

"Do you have a better idea?" Emerald snapped, and looked up at the destroyed tower again. "Look, the thing's completely broken down. You can see where the dragon stuck its claws in crawling all over it. There's plenty of places where we can get footing. I think we can do it!"

"Ugh...This is not worth it," Mercury groaned, but leapt at the tower and rocketed himself up anyway. He scrabbled at the surface for a moment, then found cracks in the stone to dig his fingers into, and turned to glare at his partner. "What are you waiting for? Come on!"

"I'm coming!" Emerald snapped, jumping up after him. "This was my idea, wasn't it?"

Despite the fissures in the smooth surface and the scattered debris that they could use to make their way up, the climb was long and arduous. Before they were halfway up, Emerald's arms were shaking and burning with exhaustion, her fingers and palms were scraped raw by the stone, and sweat ran in rivulets down her face. It was all right for Mercury, whose body was stronger and who could use his boots to propel himself up, but every movement she made had her muscles screaming at her to stop, to give this up and get away from here. Only the terror and adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her climbing.

 _I'm coming, Cinder. I'm coming. Just hold on, just please be okay! Please, please,_ please _be okay..._

It took every last bit of strength they had (and, for Emerald, a brief ride on Mercury's back for the last few minutes or so, when that strength ran out), but they finally pulled themselves up onto the roof of the tower. While Mercury caught his breath, Emerald looked frantically around the destroyed place. There was the dragon, with a thick, stony casing holding it in place, its jaws still open in a frozen roar of rage. Wreckage and debris were strewn everywhere, with something gold glinting in the center. The only other person in sight was little Ruby Rose, flat on her face in the dust. Emerald didn't even spare a thought as to what on earth the girl was doing here.

" _Cinder!"_ she called out, as loud as her dry throat would allow. "Cinder, where are you?!"

"You even here?" Mercury joined in.

"Where are you?! Cind - !"

She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard something, a small sound just barely audible under her yelling. She broke off, listening harder, Mercury doing the same. Though the moaning was low and weak, and they had never once heard their leader make such pained noises before, Emerald could still recognize the voice. She glanced around again, and for the first time noticed the scrap of red poking out from behind a large gear near the edge of the roof, just next to the dragon's back leg.

"Over there!"

Emerald ran up to the gear a good second before Mercury, and her horrified gasp almost drowned out Mercury's soft, "Oh, shit," at what they found lying in the rubble behind it.

For a moment, she was sure that Cinder was dead. The heavy, acrid scent of frying meat, the charred skin and lurid red burns spreading from scalp to legs, one eye closed and the other destroyed, running messily down her twisted cheek...Surely no one could walk away like that alive. But while Emerald was frozen in shock, Mercury pushed past his partner and bent down to heft Cinder's limp body into his arms, and a faint whine of protest escaped her at the sudden movement, blood dripping from her mouth.

"Hey, take it easy, it's just us," Mercury muttered, not gently, but not unkindly either. "Hang on, we're getting you out of here."

"I...I'll cover you," Emerald said, shaking herself back into reality. With all the Grimm running wild, the Huntsmen and Huntresses likely wouldn't bother with them, but if they did, it would be no trouble for her to blur their bodies out of sight. "Let's go!"

"There's still her," Mercury pointed out, narrowing his eyes at Ruby's unconscious form. "It'd only take a second to go over and kick her off the roof."

But before Emerald could consider the idea, hearing a distant screech and looking up to catch sight of a red-eyed black bird hurtling through the sky towards them decided for her. "No, there's no time, we just need to go, _now!"_

Mercury didn't look happy about it, but nodded assent, and promptly jumped off the edge of the tower to rock-hop back down. Emerald did the same, as she fell just barely catching a glimpse of gray, black, and red as Qrow Branwen transformed and dropped onto the roof. This marked the second time that this Huntsman had gotten in their way, she thought bitterly. Both he and Ruby Rose would have particularly large targets on their backs after tonight.

But that wasn't what they had to focus on right now, she reminded herself, glancing to the side at the mangled body in Mercury's arms and turning back away immediately, her stomach churning.

There would be time enough for revenge later.

~0~

Hazel had known even before their youngest teammate returned that something had gone wrong.

While the footage of Beacon's destruction proved that their plan for Vale had come to fruition, Cinder had failed to report in to them as she was expected to do after each completed mission. With the CCT down, it wasn't concerning that they hadn't received the usual call, but when hours upon hours passed and there was no sign of her, they had started to wonder whether something hadn't gone awry after all...And now here Hazel was in the middle of the night, stationed at the border of his mistress' realm, his scroll in his pocket, waiting for the girl to either make contact or return. Watts or Tyrian would have complained about such orders, but he didn't care. He had spent far longer than this alone on tedious assignments.

However, he couldn't say he wasn't somewhat pleased when the monotony was broken, by the vaguely familiar figures of Cinder's two subordinates sprinting across the flat red ground like their lives depended on it.

Hazel raised a hand and waved them over, and they immediately wheeled around and ran even faster. As they got closer, he could see that they were both soaked in sweat and struggling for breath. Mercury dropped to his knees in front of him as if hit in the back, panting hard, the ruined body he carried slipping into his lap.

"D-Don't _drop_ her!" Emerald cried, scandalized.

"I didn't!" Mercury snapped.

Emerald just glared, bent over with her hands on her knees. "Why...Why are _you_ so eh-exhausted? M-Metal legs don't get...get tired."

"I-I don't have...metal _lungs,_ do I?"

Hazel stepped forward, and both of them went instantly quiet. "What happened?"

"We...We don't know," Mercury said. "She...We just - "

"She was fighting and something hurt her and she needs help!" Emerald burst out in one breath, looking at him with wide eyes. "You...You _will_ help her, right?"

Hazel glanced down, eying the raw scarlet burns. "She's still alive?"

"Y-Yeah, felt her breathing," Mercury confirmed.

"And she obtained the Fall Maiden's full power?"

The two exchanged an uncertain glance, but then said in unison, "Yes!"

Hazel nodded, deciding that now was not the time to grill them over the possible lie. "Give her to me," he said, reaching down, and Mercury was only too eager to pass his burden up to the older man. "Go on ahead, and inform Salem of what's happened. Tell her to make sure Watts has the lab ready to receive her."

Though they both looked about ready to collapse, Emerald and Mercury bolted off again, towards the fortress looming in the distance. Hazel took a moment to assess the damage done to the barely breathing teammate lying in his arms. Cinder's dress, choker, and anklet were stuck into the burnt and twisted flesh - stuck, but unlike their owner, completely undamaged. One arm dangled in the air, charred to the bone. The one intact eye had opened a fraction, and stared up at him so vacantly that he supposed she wasn't seeing him at all. Her lips were moving slightly, mumbling one unintelligible thing over and over. He narrowed his eyes: he hadn't seen injuries like this in years, but still, where they had come from was unmistakable.

So Beacon had been hiding another set of silver eyes this whole time...This could complicate things.

 _Quiet, now. You'll make it,_ he thought, setting off at a run for the fortress himself. They would ensure their new Maiden's survival, and then move forward from there. _This is nothing we haven't seen before._

~0~

Whenever they were forced to be here, Emerald and Mercury never liked to wander around this fortress. Despite Salem and Cinder's promises that the roving Grimm would not harm them, so long as they remained faithful to this cause, they didn't like to take any chances. But still, it wasn't as if waiting in this musty, candlelit hallway, with the smell of burnt hair and flesh still clinging to them, was any less stressful.

Mercury leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, glaring at the floor. Cinder's blood still streaked his arms and front, but he had no motivation to go and change his clothes just yet. They had neither seen nor heard from anyone else in the castle since Cinder had gone into surgery. Hazel had asked them a few more questions about what had happened at Beacon and then left them alone, Watts was the one performing the surgery with Salem close by, and Tyrian (unnerving as the thought was) could be anywhere.

Meanwhile, Emerald paced anxiously back and forth, across the length of the huge double doors to the wing that was half laboratory and half infirmary. Mercury had tried to tune out the sound of her heels clicking against the stone floor, steadily going faster and faster as time went by. But after hours of the repetitive noise, that was proving impossible.

"Will you cut that out?" Mercury snapped, finally lifting his head. "I'm surprised you're not wearing a path into the floor."

Emerald stopped, glaring at him over her shoulder. "I have every reason to be stressed at the moment, I think I'll handle it however I want."

"You're really going to be annoying now? Listen, they said - "

"No, they didn't _say_ anything!" Emerald shouted, whirling on him. "They never tell us _anything!"_

Mercury gritted his teeth. "Lower your voice."

"They didn't say what was going on, or if she'd be okay, or what'll happen to us if she dies, or - !"

"Fuck's sake, she's not going to die!"

"How do you know?! You _saw_ her, didn't you? What do you think they'll do with us if Cinder - "

"Shut up! We'll figure something out!"

"Is bickering like this all you two ever do?"

They spun around to see an unsmiling Hazel coming around the corner, scroll in hand. "Because if so, then I wonder whether you were more of a liability than a help to Cinder." When the pair's only response was silent glaring, he continued. "Don't take offense. I dislike infighting, not you personally. Now..."

He held out his scroll, showing them an ID picture of a young, smiling girl dressed in red. "You told us that there was someone else on the tower with Cinder. Was this her?"

Their eyes widened when they recognized the picture. "Y-Yeah," Mercury said. "How did you know?"

"Your report of what happened and Cinder's condition seemed familiar, so I took a closer look through the documents you three obtained. It seems we overlooked this girl's silver eyes."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Emerald asked irritably. "She's just a stupid kid. Who cares about her eyes?"

"A silver-eyed warrior presents a different sort of danger than an average Huntsman or Huntress. Their powers cause devastation to any Grimm in their path, and it would appear that a Maiden can suffer the same fate."

"Then...You...This is exactly what I mean!" Emerald shouted. "Why didn't we know about this going in?!"

"We didn't think you needed to. I personally eliminated Beacon's last recorded warrior of their kind, over ten years ago."

"But still - !" Emerald jumped and broke off at the sound of her partner's fist slamming against the wall. "M-Mercury?"

"This is bullshit," Mercury snarled through clenched teeth. "That little brat...I _had_ her! I fought her under the stadium, but I didn't think I needed to really try...I could have killed her _right there_ and I wasted time just toying with her!"

"Breathe, boy," Hazel ordered. "That wasn't our only chance. We need to - "

At that moment, the double doors ground open, and the three of them turned to see Watts step out of the blindingly bright white wing, peeling off bloodstained surgical gloves and dropping them in a trash bin just inside the entryway.

"You two are still here?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Emerald and Mercury. "It's been all night; you really don't have anything better to do with yourselves?"

Mercury glared and looked as if he were about to snap back, but Emerald beat him to it. "Is Cinder okay?"

"Well, she's sustained extensive third-degree burns on the entire left side of her body, as well as less severe burns in her mouth and throat, she may or may not lose the use of her left arm, her ear was burnt off, and her eye seems to have been melted right out of her head," Watts said, as casually as if he were reading a grocery list. "Decidedly not _okay_. So, what happened to her? She couldn't handle the Maiden's full power and blew herself up?"

"Of course not!" Emerald yelled, but Hazel stepped forward and put an arm in front of both her and Mercury.

"You know as well as I do that this situation is serious," he said, fixing his teammate with a stern glare. "If you could focus on that..."

"I've been _focusing_ on that girl's repulsive body for hours now, but it appears I can't be allowed even a moment of levity. So appreciative of you," Watts replied curtly. "Even so, I did recognize the abnormality of her injuries. I assume you did, too, Hazel?"

Hazel nodded. "This will need to be discussed further at some point."

"Indeed."

"Okay, fine," Emerald said, knowing full well that they weren't going to be let into the loop about this, either. "She's going to live, at least, isn't she? Can I see her?"

"Yes, she's in stable condition, albeit heavily sedated and intubated from her surgery. But no, you can't see her now. Salem is watching over her in the recovery room, and has ordered that nobody disturb them."

"She may summon you there at some point later, however. I recall that you were given a room next to Cinder's to stay in while you're here. So I suggest," Hazel told the distraught thief, in a tone that made it clear that it was not a suggestion, "that you and your partner rest there and stay out of the way until then."

"Fine," Mercury growled, turning on his heel to go. "Just looking at you two pisses me off. Come on, Em."

"What?! No, you can't just shut us out!" Emerald protested.

"Such insolence," Watts said with a smirk. "Cinder told us that she had you two well trained, but clearly she failed at that, too."

Emerald whirled on him, clenching her fists. "She's not - !"

But at that moment, she was interrupted by a clatter in the rafters above, that made them all look up. A second later, Tyrian leaped down from the ceiling, his boots slamming hard on the flat stone floor as he landed right in the middle of the group, Emerald and Mercury hastily backpedaling a few feet. He lifted his head and looked at them all with an elated grin, oblivious to the tension in the air.

"I've just finished watching all the footage of Beacon's destruction!" he announced gleefully. "What a wonderful show you put on! It looked like such fun, I had to play it over and over again! Now, where's our little lady of the hour? I think some celebrations are in order, don't you?"

There was a long moment of silence and staring. Tyrian blinked, not quite understanding the lack of agreement.

Emerald let out a wordless yell of frustration, and stormed out of the hall, Mercury on her heels. The grin dropped from Tyrian's face as they brushed past him, and he turned to look at his teammates with a completely baffled expression. "Was it something I said?"

Hazel took a deep, slow, steadying breath, and got the sense that he'd be doing that a lot more than usual in the weeks to come. "Tyrian. How many times do we need to tell you, _think_ before you do something?"

"Yes, have you _no_ concept of tact?" Watts put in, pointedly ignoring the glare Hazel sent his way.

"Well, what's going on?!" Tyrian snapped defensively. "I _thought_ we had just completed our victory in Vale! Was I wrong?"

Hazel could feel a headache coming on already. He supposed it had only been a matter of time, anyway. "I'm getting to that. Now, listen, both of you. This is how it's going to be..."

 **~0~**


	2. Wake-Up Call

" _My breathing gets faster and so does my heartbeat_

 _I wish this was over, I wish that this was a dream, but - !_

 _I created a monster, a hell within my head_

 _Nowhere to go, I'm out on my own; oh, I'm so scared..."_

 _\- Nightmare,_ Set It Off

~0~

As she slowly floated back up into consciousness, the first thing Cinder became aware of was pain. There was a dull burning in her chest, in her face, in her arm, that spread and grew sharper with every second.

 _What...What happened to me?_

Everything was dark, and her body felt so heavy and stiff. She tried to move, but found that she couldn't. From very far away, she heard a series of tiny, muffled whimpers.

"Ah. She's waking up."

What? Had those noises been her? No, there was no way. She would never sound so pitiful.

Her eyes felt as if they had been glued shut - well, _one_ of them did, the other just felt strange beneath the burn, in a way she couldn't place. With what seemed like much more effort than it should have taken, she forced one eye open, and the piercing white of the walls and ceiling above her stung and made it water.

 _Where am I? Am I...I shouldn't...Wasn't I somewhere else?_

"Cinder."

Her right eye immediately flicked over towards the gentle voice at that side, though it made her nauseatingly dizzy even to do that. Despite her confusion, despite whatever was wrong with her vision, seeing Salem's familiar face calmed her somewhat.

 _Home. I'm home...? But why?_

She startled, sending a jolt of pain through her chest, when Salem laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Cinder, can you hear me?"

That was something simple, at least. She started to open her mouth to say an automatic, _Yes, ma'am,_ but her mouth and throat felt so raw and swollen, and it hurt to even breathe. She wondered fleetingly if she'd had some sort of tube down her throat while unconscious. After failing to produce anything more than a weak exhale, a jerk of her head was all she could manage.

"Very good. Listen carefully, now. Your mouth and throat were badly damaged, so either nod or shake your head when I ask you something. Do you understand?"

 _Damaged?! How?!_ She tried again to ask, but panicked choking noises were all that came out. _What is going on? What_ happened _to me?!_

"Calm down," Salem said, gently but firmly. "And _listen._ You completed your mission. You did everything just right, there's no need to worry. However, on Beacon Tower, you were - "

But the rest of her words were lost as the memories came flash-flooding back into Cinder's mind, hitting her like a punch, throwing her back into -

 _Cold night sky above Beacon, the dragon's screech and the girl's wailing in her ears, blinding burning light pouring over her in waves, caught in a star going supernova, tearing her screams away as pain beyond pain overwhelms her, searing flesh from bone, burning burning_ _ **burning her alive -**_

And in one horrible split second, everything clicked into place.

 _Oh...No, oh, gods, please, no - !_

Her arm, it had hit her left arm first. She tried to lift it, to make a fist, to do anything at all with it. But though she could still feel it hanging off of her, it wouldn't move, just lay there limp and useless at her side.

 _No, this isn't happening!_

Her left leg moved, but searing pain lanced through it at the slight twitch. Bandages were wound around her face, she realized, thick and far too tight. But despite that, she couldn't feel her ear against them, only flat skin against the rough cloth...Was it _gone?!_

And the eye, her _eye_...

Cinder remembered feeling something burst, remembered visceral, boiling liquid gushing down her cheek, but that couldn't be right, it _couldn't._ She tried to blink under the bandage, to glance back and forth, but though her right eye closed and moved as it should, she felt nothing at all in her left. She tried again, faster, and again and again, and still nothing, still _nothing!_

She realized then that she was trying to scream, but only a guttural, terrified rasp was coming up from her burnt throat.

 _No! No, no, no, no, please, no! Not this!_

Reflexively, she tried to lurch out of the infirmary bed, heedless of the pain it caused her, only to be firmly held down. "Cinder, _calm yourself,"_ Salem repeated, her hand tightening on her subordinate's shoulder.

 _I can't! I'm sorry! I_ can't!

Her vision blurred and swam, and the world spun wildly around her. Salem was still talking - trying to soothe her? Reprimanding her? She didn't know. Though she tried, she couldn't hear any of it over the shrill ringing in her ears and the spinning mess of panicked thoughts in her head.

 _Can't move can't hear can't see can't move can't hear can't see can't move can't hear can't see_

Her heart raced harder than it ever had in her life, so hard it _hurt,_ so hard she was sure it would stop cold any moment _._ She was breathing too fast and not enough, her chest was seizing up, like something had a death grip on her throat and lungs and just wouldn't let go. Everything was closing in on her - the walls, her mistress, her own destroyed body - and all she wanted to do was get away, but her numb and shaking body wouldn't _move._

 _Can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe - !_

"Cinder - " Salem trailed off into a sigh, realizing that mindless terror was all she was going to get out of the girl at the moment, and looked up past the bed at something Cinder couldn't see. "Put her back under."

"Yes, ma'am," said a voice she recognized as Watts', and she picked up on the sound of softly approaching footsteps behind her.

 _What?! No, wait, don't - !_

But before she could do anything, something cold was running through a vein of her intact arm, up into her head, and all of a sudden she could no longer form coherent thoughts, her mind a directionless haze. For a second, she felt as if she were sinking into the sweat-soaked sheets of the infirmary bed, then floating, and then she knew no more.

~0~

She didn't know how long it was before she was awake again.

Her eyes - _eye,_ she remembered with a jolt, that woke her up even faster - fluttered open more easily than last time, but the heaviness and spinning in her head still remained; whatever she'd been shot up with had been _strong,_ she thought with a shade of irritation. It didn't help: the world still swam in front of her and the memories, the _fear,_ came rushing back through her far too quickly.

Again, she tried to jerk her body up, into at least a sitting position, but the searing pain that shot through her chest at the motion sent her down onto her back again. Almost immediately, someone was taking her undamaged hand, enveloping it in two of their own. She jumped, thinking of Salem, but then realized at once that that was wrong. These hands were slender, warmer, softer...

"I-It's okay. Just...Just lie still, all right?"

Cinder froze. She knew that voice.

Her vision was still cloudy but slowly clearing, and she looked up again, hoping she'd been wrong. But no, she'd been exactly right. The smile Emerald put on when their eyes met was trying to be comforting, encouraging, but it was too shaky and small to be anything but nervous. And the way those red eyes stared down at her broken body, with a poorly hidden mix of horror and pity, made her stomach go cold.

 _No, no,_ a tiny, mortified voice at the back of her mind protested. _You can't be here, you can't see me like this..._

But despite her gut reaction, she wasn't entirely sure whether her good arm shot out towards the younger girl to push her away or pull her closer. It didn't matter either way; the instant she moved, Emerald was laying her arm back down onto the sheets and tentatively holding it there.

"Don't, don't do that," she murmured. "You still have that IV tube stuck in you, it'll hurt if you tear it out."

On some level, Cinder knew full well that she looked ridiculous. But any embarrassment she felt was drowned out by how loudly her heart was still pounding in her ears, how pathetically desperate she was for _something_ to calm her. So without thinking about it, she grabbed Emerald's wrist and held on tight, tugging her closer, trying to speak.

"Ehh...Ehh..." She choked and whimpered, and hated herself for it, sharply and deeply. If she just kept trying, she thought hysterically, her voice would come back. It had to, it _had_ to! "Eh- _ehhh!"_

Emerald's eyes widened. "I..." She swallowed hard, and though her voice was steady enough, it was clearly taking a lot to keep it that way. "It's okay. Y-You don't have to talk, not right now. Not if it's hurting you. It's all right, I...I'll help you. Just breathe, okay? Slow and easy, with me. You're all right. Y-You're going to be all right. Breathe..."

The words only half registered with her, but the soothing tone was enough to slow her mind down enough to listen, to make her realize that she was close to hyperventilating again and that her throat still felt like it was on fire, only made worse by how hard she was straining it.

 _Breathe. Okay. Okay. Slow. Easy..._

She had to focus. She tore her eyes away from Emerald's face, instead watching her shoulders and chest rise and fall, steady and calm.

 _In, out...In, out...In, out..._

It took a good few minutes for her own breathing to get anywhere near normal. Though she knew that the death grip she still had on Emerald's arm had to hurt, she couldn't make herself relax it, let alone let go. Emerald didn't react, however; she was still murmuring comfort to her, still gently stroking her forearm.

But even so, her fingers rested hesitantly on Cinder's skin, as if afraid to be touching her without permission. And yes, that same little voice was telling Cinder that she would _never_ allow Emerald to handle her this way, to tell her what she should do instead of the other way around, but in this moment she could not for the life of her remember why. Nor could she remember how to make her heart stop pounding, her body stop trembling, how to make the fear she knew was written plainly on her face go _away -_

"Is this better?"

To her immense relief, Cinder only jumped a little at the voice on her other side and the cold fingers in her hair. _Stop_ doing _that!_ she wanted to shout, but she knew that even if she could speak, she wouldn't have dared.

If Salem noticed her irritation, she didn't show it, only smiled serenely. "You seem to be adjusting. Very good. I thought bringing your teammate in would help keep you calm."

Cinder glanced back at Emerald. Well, it had worked, she supposed. There was no way she was going to let herself break down like that again in front of her subordinates, whether that had been Salem's true intention or not. She had humiliated herself enough.

"Now," Salem went on, bringing Cinder's attention back to her. "Are the painkillers working?"

Cinder thought for a moment, then nodded. She still felt as if she'd been skinned alive and dumped in a vat of boiling water, but the pain wasn't nearly as unbearable as before.

"Are you ready to listen to me?"

Nod.

"Can you answer when I ask you a question?"

Nod.

"Will you control yourself until we're finished?"

Nod, with a reflexive squeeze of Emerald's arm to go with it.

"Good girl. As I told you before: you were badly wounded on Beacon Tower as you neared the end of your mission. You've noticed by now what you've lost, I doubt I need to remind you. I know that you're frightened and upset, and I forgive you for overreacting earlier," Salem assured her, with a gentle stroke of her hair - which, she realized, felt as if most of it had been singed off.

At the last few words, Emerald looked alarmed, and glanced between them for an answer that neither of them cared to give. Cinder wondered how much Salem had told her before allowing her back to her leader's side, but just nodded at her mistress again, hoping she would recognize it as gratitude.

"Do you remember being injured?"

Nod, nod, nod.

"You...Hm. I wish you could tell me, what is the last thing you remember?"

Before Cinder's brain could catch up with her body, she was already trying to lift her head and answer. "Ahhh - "

" _Hush."_ Salem's hand moved down to cup her jaw. "Understand, my girl, that your wounds are treatable, but not if you insist on making them worse."

A tiny, chastised noise escaped Cinder's throat, and she lay still. Emerald looked stricken. "I-I think you could - "

She broke off, looking for all the world like a puppy caught misbehaving. Salem smiled indulgently at her. "Don't be afraid, child. What did you have in mind?"

"Well..." Emerald looked down at Cinder. "Do you want to try, maybe, tracing the letters into my hand? Like..." She took Cinder's hand and ran her finger over her palm: _A, B, C._ "That?"

Cinder supposed that that was better than nothing. She flipped Emerald's hand over and traced the lines into her palm with one unsteady finger: _L-I-G-H-T._

"...Light?" Emerald read, brows furrowing. "White light, right? That's what Mercury and I saw."

Nod, nod, and she was still writing. _H-U-R-T-S-O-M-U-C-H_

"Hurt...Hurts..." Emerald swallowed again, but it wasn't enough to hold back the pain in her voice. "It hurt so much."

 _W-H-A-T-W-A-S-I-T_

"What...was...Wait, you didn't know?!"

"You were caught off-guard. We all were," Salem cut in smoothly, before Cinder could answer. She paused, considering how to explain. Both girls were silent, watching her, waiting. "There exist in this world certain people, who were born with great power dormant in their souls. And until that power is awakened and unleashed in some way, the only way to identify them is by their silver eyes. Your teammates have orders to kill on sight any silver-eyed person they come across. I was under the impression that they had extinguished the last of their kind's presence in Vale long ago, years before you came to us, and so it would be safe to send you there now."

Cinder couldn't help it; she stared, jaw hanging open. Even if she weren't wounded, she wouldn't have been able to speak. A thousand questions choked her, all pushing to be asked at once: _What? What are you talking about? Who are those people? What did that girl_ do?! _How could she be stronger than me?! How could you not_ tell me?!

"Clearly, I was misinformed. One must have been overlooked. And she managed to find you, after..." Salem paused again, looking at Cinder curiously. "This was after you claimed the Maiden's power. I wonder...How, exactly, did she find you when this happened? Did she attack immediately? Or did you do anything to frighten or upset her?"

Oh, _had she ever._ She remembered the sound of her arrow hitting home, piercing Nikos' heart and spine, and a flicker of the fierce satisfaction she had felt at the act returned. But it faded just as soon as it had come, at the memory of what had come immediately after...

No. She had to answer, focus on now. She nodded, and wrote: _I-K-I-L-L-E-D-N-I-K-O-S._

"Killed... _Oh_. Her." Emerald turned to Salem. "She was fighting the girl that Ozpin wanted to turn into a Maiden instead. Ruby's friend; supposed to be really strong. We got rid of her, but..."

"The silver-eyed girl arrived, and found Cinder at the wrong place, at exactly the wrong time," Salem finished. "I see. I should have been expecting Ozpin to be keeping an ace up his sleeve..."

None of that meant anything to Cinder right now. She continued to stare up at her mistress, unable to form anything but a pleading expression. _What's going to happen to me now? What am I going to do?_

For a moment, the room was unsettlingly silent, save for the noise of her heart monitor and the steady _drip-drip_ of her IV bag, as Salem seemed to be mulling something over. Then, as if abruptly remembering where she was, she looked back down at Cinder, and the reassuring smile returned to her face. "It's all right, Cinder. This was in no way your fault. You completed your mission admirably, on all counts, did you not?"

Nod, nod, but at the moment, not one little bit did that help.

"Now, I know you told me that you would make this part your highest priority, after obtaining the powers of Fall, and I know you would never lie to me. But I would so love to hear it confirmed." Salem's voice was already starting to drip with self-satisfaction as she spoke. "Did you kill Ozpin?"

A ghost of a smile passed over Cinder's face. The sparks flying and fire flashing in front of her eyes in the dark vault, the sweet smell of flesh burnt black and hot ashes sifting through her fingers...Remembering that did make her feel somewhat better. She scratched shakily into Emerald's palm: _B-U-R-N-E-D-H-I-M-A-L-I-V-E._

"...She burned him alive," Emerald reported. "He...Yeah, he's definitely dead."

" _Excellent,"_ Salem said. She stroked Cinder's hair again - almost lovingly, Cinder allowed herself to think. "You would never let me down."

No, certainly not. It might have become part of her mission anyway, but the way Cinder saw it, using her newfound powers to kill her mistress' lifelong enemy was the least she could do to repay her for helping her to get them in the first place. Even so, the thought that this had been a job perfectly done still rang hollow in her head. And then there was another problem...

 _W-H-A-T-N-O-W_

"What...now?" Emerald said, looking as unsure about the answer as Cinder felt.

"What now?" Salem, on the other hand, seemed slightly puzzled as to why they would ask. "Now your treatment begins. You do wish to be healed, don't you?"

Again, all she could do was stare. Heal...Yes, of course she wanted that; right now, having every part of her just go back to the way it should be was the _only_ thing she wanted. _But everything's ruined...There's no way..._

"Don't look so downcast. This..." Salem took Cinder's left arm in her hands. "Can be fixed."

Again, Cinder tried to move the arm - just one little _twitch._ But she couldn't do it, couldn't even feel the limb, and a small, defeated sigh escaped her.

"Yes, it can," Salem said patiently, running her fingers over the bandages covering the charred flesh. "After all you've done for me, I'm not going to just abandon you. There are several ways we can deal with your injuries, and I'm sure you're willing to cooperate. We'll have you back to fighting form soon enough, I promise."

On the one hand, Cinder still didn't see how that could be. But on the other hand, that didn't necessarily matter; she trusted her mistress, had agreed long ago to put her life in Salem's hands. So she gripped Emerald's arm tight, and nodded once more, trying to look at least a little bit confident.

"Very good. Don't worry, you're a highly adaptable girl. I'm sure that if you give it time, you'll adjust perfectly well to your new situation."

 **~0~**


	3. Restart

" _She'll wander through a wasted life, with no words to say_

 _It's not enough, it's not enough; she'll never feel, she'll never love_

 _She's just a shell of her former self; it must be so rough."_

 _\- Shell,_ Nathan Sharp

~0~

Cinder did not, in fact, adjust well to her new situation.

Instead, it seemed to Hazel that the more time went by, the worse her demeanor became, as it slowly sunk in that this was what her life was going to be now.

With Cinder confined to bed rest much of the time, and allowed out only for her treatment sessions in the council room, Hazel had not seen very much of her. But what he had seen did not bode well at all.

She submitted to being looked after, albeit grudgingly, once she recognized that she had no other choice until she had healed somewhat. Though help wasn't exactly being offered from any of her teammates, she never went anywhere without both her subordinates, who stuck by her side as if they didn't know what else to do. Emerald was practically attached to her, a crutch both physical and emotional that hastily attended to her every need. From letting Cinder lean on her for support when she had to try and walk, to helping her eat, drink, and wash with a body that wouldn't obey her, to translating her clicking and rasping with surprising skill, the girl was right there. And Mercury...Hazel supposed that Watts and Tyrian's habit of calling him Cinder's attack dog wasn't inaccurate. The boy stood like a barrier between the two of them and the rest of the fortress, fists clenched and eyes narrowed, whenever they crossed paths with anyone else in the halls.

That didn't happen all too often, though, with Cinder confined to bed rest except when summoned to Salem's side for her "treatment." In Hazel's opinion, it was a curious concept. He had never seen Salem use her powers to heal; that was what Watts was for. But then again, none of them had ever returned home so grievously injured before, and the good doctor himself had confirmed that there was nothing more that could be done for Cinder with traditional medical science. So he supposed that, as always, he would simply trust that his master knew what she was doing. This did not, however, mean that it was in any way pleasant to experience.

Now, it was not their intention to come together and eavesdrop on their youngest's sessions of torment. But every once in a while, one, two, or all three of them happened to find themselves outside the door of the council room, and happened to stop for a moment and listen to the concerning noises coming from inside. Low, drawn-out moans, frantic but incoherent noises, and strangled attempts at screaming, interspersed with sharp reprimands from Salem...None of them could figure out what was supposed to be going on back there (Tyrian had attempted to climb out on the outside walls to peek through a window, but had been shooed away before he'd gotten a decent look). But they were beginning to see how it was supposed to help.

Every time Cinder hobbled out of the council room, she was just a tiny bit steadier on her feet, though still not enough to walk on her own for long. If she noticed a teammate there watching her - Tyrian leering, Watts smirking, and Hazel's own impassive stare - a furious snarl curled her lips, and her body twitched as if she wasn't sure whether to ignore them or not. Hazel watched the muscles of her throat move, watched her bite her lip to keep from trying to speak and embarrassing herself when nothing came out. He couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be, for someone who loved to talk as much as Cinder did to have her voice suddenly stripped away.

He could, however, imagine better ways to deal with it. The methods Cinder chose to employ included fixing her face into a seemingly permanent outraged glare, tensing like a snake if anyone approached her, especially on her blind side, and more often than not snapping and grumbling whenever anyone tried to talk to her. And it didn't seem to stop at that, from the way he had overheard Emerald's attempt to convince her to do the mobility exercises she'd been given cut off by a loud, sharp slap and a cry of pain.

"She's like a cat," a grinning Tyrian stage-whispered into his ear, when they saw the distinctly palm-shaped bruise left on the girl's face, "that someone dumped into a bathtub, then grabbed by the tail and flung right back out. Poor thing, I wonder how long she'll go around hissing at everybody before she realizes that won't fix anything?"

Hazel did not expect that to be anytime soon, considering that first, the sources of her indignant fury were a constant, needling presence, and second, she wasn't quite done with those normal medical procedures either.

"Mm, yes," Watts confirmed when Hazel stopped by the lab after a combat training session, to get a deeper-than-usual gash stitched up. "That whole left arm of hers is necrotic; even _I_ can't fix it."

The final stick and pull of the needle closing up his flesh was as painless as the claws of the Beowolf that had torn it. Hazel resisted the urge to scratch at the completed sutures. "And neither can Salem?"

"She claims to not be able to restore it, either. Which, just between us, I have my doubts about, but no point in questioning her. So, unfortunately," Watts went on, with a smirk that said he didn't find it unfortunate at all, "it's going to have to be amputated."

"Amputated?" It was the logical thing to do, Hazel knew. And he was certain that Cinder knew that as well, but he wouldn't be surprised if she raged at it anyway. "When?"

"Two days from now. Salem informed us both this morning. Surprisingly, Cinder managed to not throw another fit. But the way her little friends looked at us..." He set down the needle on a nearby tray and picked up a bone saw from another, smiling at it like it was an old friend. "Anyone would think we were going to do something _horrible_ to her."

These were the moments that told Hazel that it was time to leave his teammate to his work. He nodded acknowledgement but did not respond as he stood up to walk out. Perhaps it was time to check on those three again, just to see if any progress was being made.

~0~

When he arrived at the wing of the fortress containing the team's bedrooms, it wasn't looking that way. Mercury was outside, leaning against the opposite wall a distance away from Cinder's door and immersing himself in a game on his Scroll, presumably to ignore the noises from within. He looked up when he heard Hazel approaching, and though the suspicious look returned to his eyes, he didn't seem overtly hostile.

"Hey," he greeted with a nod, locking and pocketing the Scroll. "I don't think you want to go in there."

Hazel stopped next to him, raising his eyebrows. "Her arm. Is she upset about the surgery?"

A dramatic shrug. "Hell if I know. She's been even angrier than usual since Salem and Mustache told her about it, but if you actually _ask_ her what she thinks, she'll pull this weird smile and go like - " He mimed vigorously hacking off his left arm with a flat palm. "So I'd guess...not really?"

"What, then?"

"She's still not sold on this whole 'steady recovery' idea," Mercury explained. "Going little by little doesn't seem to be her thing anymore. She keeps trying to do everything the way she used to, and then blows up when she can't. Seems worse than usual today, though."

He pointed at the half-open door, and Hazel looked in to see the worst physical therapy session he had ever witnessed taking place. Granted, he hadn't witnessed many of them, but he figured it had to be somewhere up there.

"Just a couple more, Cinder." Emerald's voice sounded like how walking on thin ice felt, as she tried to figure out how to correctly urge her leader along; Cinder reacted to being told what to do by a subordinate about as well as Salem did, and Hazel supposed that the girl knew that all too well by now. "You don't need to go so fast...I mean, not if you don't want to?"

Cinder growled from between clenched teeth in response. Her hair, now chopped short where it had been burnt off, was plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her good arm was wrapped tight around Emerald's shoulder, fingers gripping her bare shoulder so tightly that the knuckles were white and the nails were digging into the girl's skin. She was trying to cross the length of her bedroom, but looked more like she was fighting her way through a blizzard for all the progress she was making. About an inch or two at a time, Hazel estimated.

Cinder made another tentative move forward, but with one wrong step with her bad leg, it buckled underneath her as if she'd been shot, and she pitched sideways with a shrill yelp. It was only Emerald moving down to catch her, lightning-fast, that kept her from falling onto the floor.

"It's okay! I've got you!" Emerald guided Cinder back to a standing position, wincing a little as she was clung to even harder. "We're almost done, okay?"

Cinder didn't look at her, just emitted another furious noise and threw herself forward again.

"This is painful," Hazel muttered, too low to catch either girl's attention.

"Yeah, tell me about it. That leg's not dead, but from what I've seen so far, it basically just works when it wants to. Still hurts her a lot, too." Almost as an afterthought, Mercury clinked one metal heel against the wall, smirking. "Even _I_ don't have that problem."

After another long, long minute, the pair made it to the opposite wall, Cinder thumping it with her palm to mark the progress - or to satisfy the urge to hit something, Hazel wasn't sure which.

"Okay, that's three. The packet said two more and you can rest. Let's go..."

Cinder shot her a look of complete and utter disgust, and refused to be moved back around to do the next lap. Emerald didn't let go, but stopped trying, looking terribly nervous. "Cinder, come on...I know it hurts you, but you need to work at this if you want to get better!"

But it appeared that pointing out the obvious wasn't going to work. Cinder braced her shoulder against the wall and her good hand shot out to slam into Emerald's chest, shoving her away with a noise that Hazel thought was supposed to mean, " _No!"_

"A-All right...We can take a break. Do you want me to go get you a cold cloth?"

At the answering nod, Emerald ducked hastily into the adjoining bathroom, and Cinder finally collapsed, sitting against the wall with her good leg brought up to her chest and her bad leg stretched out on the floor. She shut her eye tight, and pushed her damp bangs out of her face. The way her labored breathing sounded, forced out of her still-raw throat and lungs, didn't seem healthy at all.

"So yeah, it's going great," Mercury said under his breath, a new twist to his smirk. "Don't suppose any of _you_ guys feel like making yourselves useful?"

"I see no need. She's already shown her lingering weakness relying on you two." When Cinder had first brought two strange children into their fold (without actual permission, he might add), Salem had trusted her word about the benefits of her decision. Hazel had not objected...But he had had his doubts. "As one of Salem's chosen, she should be able to stand on her own."

"Well, she could before her _leg_ was burned to a crisp."

"A poor example. My point is, whether she recovers or not depends on her." Hazel looked past the boy's shoulder again. Cinder still hadn't noticed them, but her eye had opened a fraction and landed on the half-empty bottle of water on her nightstand. Her gaze slid over to the bathroom door for a moment - Emerald wouldn't hear her if she tried to ask for it - and then back to the water, considering. This could be interesting. "If she wants to get better, she will. All there is to it."

"Are you shitting me?" Mercury hissed. "I don't know how much you actually know about stuff like this, but it's a _little_ more difficult than that."

"Irrelevant. She can deal with difficulty on her own," Hazel insisted. "She knows better than to act like such a brat."

"What are you, her dad?" Mercury snorted, narrowing his eyes. "Y'know, if things were different, I might have agreed with you, but _unlike_ you, _I_ know how she feels!"

Something flickered in the boy's expression, as if he'd blurted out something he shouldn't have, and all of a sudden he wouldn't meet Hazel's eyes. Hazel had no intention of letting him leave it there, and simply stared pointedly, waiting. After a minute, Mercury sighed, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up to the ceiling.

"...One minute, I was walking around with perfectly good, natural legs," he began, careful not to let too much emotion bleed into his voice. "Not the strongest in the world, I'll admit, but I liked myself just fine with them. Then the next thing I know, I'm in my dad's workshop, and he's shoving rags and ether in my mouth and sawing through my fucking knees before I was even knocked out all the way. Woke up...And the first thing I see is my legs thrown in a trash bag. I mean, I...I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do with the damn things when you're done."

He made a choked noise at the back of his throat, that Hazel assumed was an attempt at a laugh.

"Technically, the metal legs are fine. Dad wanted to make a killing machine and that's what he got. But right at the start...I swear, _everything,_ every little pain, every little _difference,_ just drove me crazy. I...It hurt so _bad_ that I had to make someone else hurt too. I wanted to destroy everything and everyone I could reach. I _needed_ to. I barely even lasted a week before..." He paused, then turned to Hazel with a smirk that looked rather sick. "Well, I'm sure Cinder told you guys how she found me."

"So that's how it happened?"

"Yeah. I don't think you would get it. But when something like that happens to you, it's only a matter of time before you snap."

He opened his mouth to explain further, but at that moment a crash and a yell of frustration came from Cinder's room, that made both of them look over. Through the half-open door, Hazel could quickly discern the source of the commotion. In trying to reach the water, Cinder's injured leg had yet again given out and buckled under her, or perhaps her newly impaired depth perception had deceived her. But whatever had happened, had made her fall and crash right into the metal bed frame, her bad knee and shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and knocked her to the floor, hard.

The girl had always had a remarkably high tolerance for pain, so Hazel could only conclude that the tiny, distressed _ah, ah, ah_ noises she made as she realized she was struggling to get up came from momentary fright instead. For a second, she lay there, wide-eyed and shaking, leg twitching, her good arm alternating between grabbing at her chest and scratching at the carpet as she tried to pull herself back to her feet.

It only took that second for Emerald to notice, gasp, and dart back across the room to her leader's side. "Cinder!"

Cinder's only response was an unintelligible noise, something like a whimper, as Emerald bent down to help her up, wrapping one arm around her shoulders for support and taking her hand with the other for comfort. "It's okay," she soothed, as she guided her up and over to the bed, Cinder's bad leg dragging uselessly on the floor behind her. "You're okay, I'm here. I'm right here..."

To anyone else, this might have been comforting. But Hazel could see, in the curl of Cinder's lip and the indignant flare in her eyes, that it was only making things worse. He could hear the faint, raspy breath from here, building up to try for a growl, and watched carefully to see what would happen. Mercury, he observed, was doing the same.

Emerald didn't seem to notice, just kept talking as she guided Cinder to the bed, apparently thinking her ragged breathing and trembling body still meant distress and not anger. "Almost there...Easy, I've got you. You're - !"

Whatever she was going to say next was broken off into a choked yelp, as Cinder managed to twist around, grab Emerald by the neck, and throw her down to the floor with an incoherent attempt to shout. She started to fall with her, but quickly steadied herself on her good knee before she could hit the ground again, leaning over Emerald, who was only able to stare up in bewildered shock. Cinder grabbed the younger girl by the collar and held on tight, and Emerald immediately went limp and unresisting. Her arm and hand were still shaking and beads of sweat ran down her forehead, the exertion only worsening both her pain and the absolutely livid expression that twisted her face.

"Knew it. Bad move," Mercury remarked under his breath, shaking his head.

"Does she usually do this?" Hazel asked.

"Get rough with Emmy? Sometimes," Mercury muttered back, not taking his eyes off his teammates. "Flip her shit like this? Never."

Gritting her teeth and breathing hard through her charred throat, Cinder yanked Emerald up close and started to hiss something into her ear. At his distance, Hazel couldn't hear exactly what she was trying to say, only faint rasping and clicking. But from the stunned and then horrified look on the girl's face, he guessed that Emerald could understand much better.

"Ci...Cinder, I'm not...I didn't mean it like that!" she stammered. "I-I'm sorry, I don't - "

Cinder let out a rough, gravelly noise of irritation and, with what strength she could muster, threw Emerald away from her again, bracing herself against the bedframe to keep her balance. Emerald stumbled and almost fell over herself, but managed to stay on her feet, albeit coltishly unsteady. While she looked dazed and hurt, Cinder was still glaring at her with a ferocity that Hazel thought was completely uncalled for, all bared teeth and fire in her eye.

"Guh...G-Geeeh, ahhh," she growled, and for the life of him Hazel couldn't figure out what that was supposed to mean. "Ehh-et..."

Emerald's hand twitched forward, as if to reach out towards her leader. "Cinder, I really am sorry! Please just let me - "

"N... _Uoh!"_ Cinder tried to yell, going bright red in the face at her inability to make herself understood. Leaning against the bed, she made half-hearted swiping motions at Emerald and the door. "G-G-Geh- _ahd!"_

"O-Okay..."

Visibly crestfallen, Emerald quickly left the room. She shut the door as Cinder climbed up onto her bed and laid down, panting hard, as if she'd just been tortured instead of simply tried to walk across her room.

As the thief crossed the wide hallway, Mercury opened his mouth to speak, and she immediately narrowed her eyes at him. "Shut up, Mercury."

"I didn't even say anything!"

"Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it!"

"Well," Hazel began, making the girl turn her distrustful glare on him. "Will you at least tell us what she said to you?"

At that, the sharpness faded from Emerald's eyes and the bite from her voice, leaving only exhaustion. "She...She said, 'Don't talk down to me. Don't you dare.' But I wasn't trying to do that at all! I-I wanted to...I just...I mean, I thought - !"

"Now, come on, Emmy," Mercury said, only half teasing. "What's Cinder always trying to tell you about _thinking?"_

Emerald gave a deep, frustrated huff, running her hands through her hair. "I'm...I'm just trying to help her. But it feels like I can never tell what she _wants_ from me now."

"...What she wants, is for none of this to have ever happened," Hazel said quietly.

"Well, I can't give her that!" Emerald nearly shouted. "I would love to, I would give _anything_ to do that, but I can't! I'm just...I'm trying my best, I'm doing everything I _can_ do, but none of it's ever good enough for her!"

"Can't deny that," Mercury said, his carefully neutral tone like a peace offering. "Like, _I_ get it, but it's fucked up to see her acting so different, right?"

Emerald sighed. "Much as I hate to agree with you... _Exactly._ She would never - It's like she's not even herself anymore."

"Yes," Hazel agreed. "I had thought she'd grown out of outbursts like this long ago."

"Yeah, I - " Mercury broke off, and both children looked at him strangely as the words fully registered with them. "What do you mean, grown out of?"

"Hm?"

"He means..." Emerald stumbled over the words, not quite meeting his eyes. "How...How long has Cinder been living here with all these - Uh, I mean, with all of you?"

"Since she was fifteen."

"Yeah?" He couldn't quite place the look Mercury was giving him, but he got the sense that it was judgmental. "How does a kid manage to catch the attention of people like you?"

"She stabbed a Huntsman twenty-seven times in the chest," Hazel said matter-of-factly, pausing for a second to think back. The girl's howls of primal fury, the blood-spattered dirt and crude, jagged glass, still proved clear in his memory. "And the stomach. And the face. I think she might have gotten him between the legs once or twice, as well."

The hall was quiet for a good few seconds. Emerald just stared, eyes wide, with what Hazel couldn't decide was shock, astonishment, or both. Mercury raised his eyebrows, looking vaguely impressed, finally remarking, "Right. As you do."

"She'd been having something of a bad day," Hazel explained, with a half-hearted shrug. "That's not the point. Even then, she had considerable raw talent, and never had any problems with what she had to do to stay here. But she was much more temperamental back then. Didn't know how to deal with her own emotions very well."

As far as he could see, the girl still didn't, just did a better job of suppressing anything she didn't like. But he refrained from saying this out loud. He wouldn't undermine the image Cinder had built up for herself to show off to her subordinates (she was doing a fine job of that on her own), nor would he reveal what scant details he knew of the background she was so loath to talk about. However, that did not mean he couldn't let the children draw their own conclusions.

"Considering the sort of life we pulled her out of, I wonder whether lashing out isn't her way of dealing with trauma."

Mercury rolled his eyes. "Play psychoanalogist all you want, it's not going to help."

But Emerald seemed to be taking the words to heart, worry leaking into the frustration in her voice. "I _want_ to help her. She needs m - she needs _something_ to be okay again. And I know things must be awful and hard for her right now...But if she's going to throw it back in my face every time I try to make it easier for her, I-I just don't know what I'm going to do! What more am I _supposed_ to do?"

"Well, for starters, maybe quit treating her like she's this fragile thing that's about to fall apart?" Mercury suggested, in a tone that might have sounded mocking, had Hazel not figured out by now that this was just how the boy talked. "That's not helping any, either. Actually, she just made it pretty clear that it pisses her off, whether you mean well or not. I just talk to her normally, and she seems to like that well enough. At least, she hasn't flipped out on me yet."

From the way Emerald whirled on him, it appeared that that had been a rhetorical question. "Oh, so _you've_ got all the answers now?"

"Uh, I've got _one,_ which is apparently one more than you have."

"That's rich coming from you! Remind me, who's the one who's actually - "

"We're going back to this, now, then?" Hazel said, as dryly as possible. Appropriately chastened, Emerald went quiet, and settled for looking at him indignantly instead. He supposed a few words of help would not go amiss. "Give her time. She'll have to accept soon enough that this isn't getting her anywhere."

Emerald sighed, rubbing her temple as if staving off a headache. "I get that, I get it, I just...I don't know how much more of... _this - !"_ She waved a frustrated hand around at nothing and everything, at her leader, the fortress and its residents, their whole realm. " - I can take at this point!" She looked about to say more, but broke off abruptly. From the look on her face, she was clearly afraid she'd blurted out too much.

"Nothing here means you harm; you do us good service," Hazel assured her. The statement was true, as well as the implication that the former half would change as soon as the latter stopped being true. "Don't let it overwhelm you. I've found that taking time to yourself is fairly settling."

"Is that your way of telling us to go away again?" Emerald asked skeptically.

Hazel shrugged. "Do as you please. It's really none of my concern."

"Well, in that case," Mercury said, stretching his arms out above his head, "I'm going to work out a bit. If we're going to be stuck in this gods-damned place for months on end, I can't afford to get rusty. Em, want to come? You can sit on my back while I do push-ups."

Emerald rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Don't you think I have better things to do with my life?"

Mercury cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side. "Do you really?"

"No. Let's go."

The pair walked the short distance down the corridor and back into their own shared bedroom, leaving Hazel standing there without another word. Which was all right, he supposed; he wasn't going to stay around here for any longer than he had to. He had plenty to do, as well. That being said...

He gave one last look to Cinder's door. He couldn't hear anything behind it anymore, but he could be certain that the girl was still in there seething. Letting her take her time to adapt would work, eventually. But taking things to their logical extreme, he wasn't entirely sure that 'eventually' was good enough, for any of them. Perhaps Mercury was right, after all. Giving Cinder a nudge in the right direction - a solid push, more like - to hasten the process was likely necessary.

A deep, weary sigh rose up from Hazel's chest. Nobody else would do it, that was for sure. Once again, the duty of being the sole voice of reason on this team would fall to him.

0~

He decided that the break of dawn that next day was as good a time as any to make his move. Or, he supposed, as close to 'dawn' as his master's realm had.

In any case, it was early enough that none of the three were awake enough to intercept him, let alone stop him, when he picked the lock to Cinder's bedroom door and stepped inside. He closed the door quietly behind him, and walked soundlessly up to the girl's bedside.

Cinder slept restlessly, just as she had when she had first come to live at the fortress as a child. Her eyelid twitched and she writhed under the blankets, mouthing that same unintelligible word over and over again. But this time, Hazel could focus enough to read her lips and guess the word: _father. Father, don't._ Interesting, he supposed.

Hazel hesitated for a moment over how to go about this. Internally, he went over what little he knew about his youngest teammate: Cinder Fall, twenty-two years old, daughter of Mistrali mercenaries, both long dead. Possessed of a heat Semblance focusing on deconstruction and reconstruction, and after being put through proper training here, had exceeded expectations in learning to combine that with her Dust, swords, and bow. Had proven loyal to Salem and a worthwhile member of the team since her recruitment, but dealing with her own personal issues and flaws was something she had always vehemently resisted, instead preferring to run full steam ahead and pretend that they weren't there.

He would be the first to admit that he had never been one to talk very much, if he had his way. But there was a lot that needed to be said that Cinder would not want to hear and that nobody else was able or willing to tell her. After this brief deliberation, he decided that she would respond best, and more importantly fastest, to the direct approach. Perhaps she needed to be shocked into understanding.

So to this end, he sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, took hold of the girl's uninjured shoulder, and shook her until her eye flashed open. It took her a second to focus enough to recognize him about two feet from her face, but when she did, she immediately recoiled, her back hitting the bed frame, and let out a strangled attempt at a yell. Her good hand reflexively flew up to cover the exposed scar.

"I've seen your wounds at their worst," he pointed out. "You hardly need to do that."

Something like a growl came up from Cinder's throat, and her palm flew out to ram into his chest, trying to shove him away from her. The action wasn't half-hearted in the least, but he barely felt it. It wasn't anything like the last time they'd sparred, he thought, remembering the vicious strike to the neck she had very nearly finished the match with.

"Do you mean to tell me that you've lost your fire already? That's not like you at all."

The look Cinder gave him was an ugly mix of disgust and hatred, and she pushed at him again, inhaling and exhaling hard, like she was preparing herself to speak.

"Stop that," he ordered. "And sit still. Seven years you've lived here; you should know that I, at least, am not here to make fun of you. And you're not in a position to refuse free help."

Cinder still looked as though she were trying to set him on fire with her glare alone - which, it occurred to him, she might now be fully capable of doing - but after a moment, she quieted and sat back against her pile of pillows anyway. She raised her eyebrow and gestured insistently at Hazel as if to say, _Well? Get on with it, then._

Fine, he would. "What do you think you're doing?"

Confusion flashed across her face for a moment, before stubbornness came right back. If she could speak, Hazel knew, the answer would depend on which of the thousand snappish retorts no doubt running through her head now was fastest out of her mouth. But since she could not, he went on.

"You understand how you're acting, don't you? That you're being irrational?"

Glaring.

"Do you think lashing out at everyone, like a stubborn child, is going to help you in some way?"

More glaring, but with added bristling for good measure.

"Hackles down," he growled. Cinder was usually the easiest of his teammates to deal with, he thought ruefully, trying not to show frustration. "This isn't a test. I asked you a simple yes-or-no question. Answer it, or I'm not leaving."

After a long moment, Cinder gave a single shake of her head.

"That's what I thought. So, now let me ask: how long do you think you can keep it up?"

Cinder blinked (or whatever the one-eyed equivalent was). All the anger flooded out of her face, and now she just looked puzzled.

"I'm not talking about what we think of it. We don't care. What I'm talking about are your subordinates. How long do you think those two are going to put up with you?"

Ah, there was the outraged look again. That hadn't taken long at all to come back. A thin rasping noise came up from Cinder's throat; she meant to argue, but Hazel cut her off before she could try. "I know what you want to say. They'll never leave you. They belong to you. Everything they have, they owe to you. And if you had said that just a few weeks ago, you would have been completely right. But things have changed now."

Her eye narrowed. She gestured to the wall to their right, that separated her room from Emerald and Mercury's, and then shook her hand in a slashing motion across her neck: _With them? Never!_

"You don't honestly think that. You just don't like admitting that this balance of power you've set up has been flipped upside down. And don't hiss at me," he added, seeing her lip beginning to curl, "because I'm telling you what you already know. Don't you remember what happened after you were beaten on Beacon Tower?"

Cinder looked suspicious, but shook her head, surprising him somewhat.

"You really don't? No one told you?"

She shook her head again, glancing away for a moment to think. After that moment, she pointed to herself, then to the window, out into the distance. She snapped her fingers, and then gestured to herself and to the floor, all around the room: _I was there, and then I was here. Just like that._

Well, then. In hindsight, Hazel supposed, it shouldn't be too surprising that she had no recollection of what had happened. He knew well what destruction the silver eyes could wreak on anything in their path, he thought, unconsciously shifting his arms. Bad enough to inflict on a normal human, but instant death to a Grimm, and he couldn't imagine what kind of agony they could cause to a Maiden who had stolen her powers by allowing a Grimm to fuse itself into her body with them. The mind acted to protect itself from trauma that would destroy it; no doubt the pain had been so intense that all memory of it had been blocked from Cinder's psyche for her own safety. He did feel a twinge of pity for the girl at the thought, but that only reminded him of why he was talking to her in the first place.

"You ought to remember. It's important," he chastised her. "Those two saw the light at the top of the tower and realized immediately that you must be in trouble. So they ran all the way there, scaled the tower with their bare hands, and then hauled your deadweight body all the way back home before the Huntsmen could find you."

For a split second, Cinder looked stunned, then quickly resumed looking irritated before Hazel could notice she'd reacted. He decided not to comment on it.

"You're smart, I'm sure you understand. There was nothing you could have done if they had decided to cut their losses and run away, and they could have done that very, _very_ easily. The girl would have eventually starved and died alone without your help, and the boy would have had nowhere and no one to go to without you, that's still true. But you would have bled to death on that tower and your hard-won power passed on to your killer if they hadn't taken the risk and chosen to save you. Now, you owe them just as much as they owe you, if not more. Do you understand that?"

As expected, the look on Cinder's face said clearly, _I understand and I hate it. And you._

"You don't have to like it. But you do need to adapt to it. They don't like it here and they're losing patience with you. You can't control them the way you have been anymore, by holding what you did for them over their heads or by threatening them with power and strength you've now lost."

She pointed to the wall, then to herself, then drew a shaky equals sign in the air with her finger, looking at Hazel as if he'd just said the most idiotic thing she'd ever heard. _We're equals now? That's ridiculous!_

"I didn't say that. You brought those two home, and how you handle them is your responsibility. But even a worm will turn, Cinder; you know that better than I do. Keep trying to act as if you're untouchable, and soon enough they'll turn on you and you will be left alone, with no one who'll let you use them as a crutch. You haven't been working on your mobility properly. You've lost control of your powers, and you don't know how to properly use your weapons anymore. As of now, you're completely useless on your own."

Cinder's eye widened and her face twisted in fury. Her hand shot up, sparks bursting in the palm, clearly trying to bring a fireball into it. But Hazel didn't even flinch, knowing that that was all she'd be able to do. And sure enough, the sparks fizzled out even faster than he'd thought, leaving Cinder staring at her own empty hand as if it had suddenly taken on a mind of its own and slapped her.

Hazel let her stunned silence hang in the air for another few seconds before he continued. "Right now, you can barely walk, see, or speak, you only have one working arm, and you can't take care of yourself, let alone fight. And that makes you furious, but no one cares about your anger except you. All that matters is, you're even more helpless now than you were when we found you. Do you remember that? Even after all this time, are you still just that hungry little alley cat I pulled out of the dirt and filth of Mistral?"

Cinder almost flinched, as if the reminder was a physical blow, even as her face contorted in rage. " _Sh-haah, ahh!"_ she managed to snarl, before choking on the attempt to shout at him. Clearly, memories of the past were still bitter to her, and though (unlike his teammates) he had never seen the point of deliberately provoking people, Hazel still could not resist hammering the point in a little more. Gods knew she probably needed it.

"You wouldn't want us to throw you right back where we found you, of course. To be fair, neither do we, not after all the time and effort we've put into you. But if all the work you've done turns out to have all been for nothing, then we will have no reason to keep you. Remember: you're difficult to replace, but not impossible." He pauses, thinking about whether or not he should continue, then decides that it wouldn't hurt to share his own personal feelings on the matter. "That would truly be a disappointment, Cinder. And I've never thought of you that way. You became strong enough to bring an entire kingdom down, but the way you're behaving now, you're as good as giving up on everything you swore to do. And if you do that, you disrespect yourself, you disrespect me, and you disrespect whoever it was that trained you before me."

At the last item, Cinder caught her breath, surprised. She opened her mouth, but Hazel went on before she could hurt her throat any more: "Yes, I know you said you were self-taught back then. No, none of us believed you. You struggled, but not _that_ badly. And you took too well to our training to not have experienced something similar before."

The look on Cinder's face and the half-hearted nod she gave could only be translated as, _All right, that's fair._

"I would hope, for your sake, that you're a better liar now than you were then," Hazel remarked, finally getting up from the bed and starting to leave. He'd said his piece, now it the rest was up to Cinder. Still...Perhaps a little more. He stopped, looked back over his shoulder, and added, in a tone he hoped was more gentle, "You've certainly become stronger since that day. Aside from letting yourself be ambushed, you did well on your mission. You should be proud of yourself."

It seemed Cinder's anger had burned itself out, at least for the time being. When she stared back at him, she merely looked very tired, more so than he had ever seen her. She nodded once, the fire in her gaze momentarily calmed, and Hazel decided to take it to mean, _Thank you, Hazel, for helping me get my head on straight, because no one else is going to do that for me._

"It's the least I can do, to talk to you like this," he added. "You know about...the interest I had in your being assigned to Beacon, and I've spoken to Salem about what happened there. And she tells me that you fought and killed Ozpin's current incarnation."

For the first time since she had arrived home, Cinder's trademark smirk reappeared on her face. Hazel wasn't sure how she could make a simple nod of confirmation look so incredibly smug, but she pulled it off.

"I know you had higher priorities to attend to, so I assume you had to make it fast. But, tell me...How did you do it?"

Cinder's smirk broadened. She brought the sparks to her palm again and spread her fingers out from her chest, to mimic flames catching. She did this a few more times for emphasis, and Hazel could fill in the rest, the visions of a roaring inferno and dying screams. Burning to death...An extraordinarily painful way to go. And a more than appropriate punishment.

He didn't quite smile, but it was close enough. "Good girl. If he had any decency at all, he'd _stay_ dead, like his vessels." Like Gretchen, he thought with a twist in his heart, but did not say. "But no such luck. I told you before you left, death is nothing to him but a delay in his plans. All we can do is make him suffer for what he's done."

Cinder seemed to understand clearly enough. She gestured to the window, touched her chest with her middle finger and pointed to Hazel with her index finger, and then twisted both fingers together and made several vicious stabbing motions, as if she held her sword again. More sparks flew to emphasize her point; it was a wonder she hadn't lit her bedsheets on fire. Hazel didn't think that that was any actual sign language she was trying to use, but he could still get her meaning, too.

"Next time out there, you'll kill him with me?"

Nod, nod.

"I see. Well, to do that, you'll have to step back and take your recovery much more seriously. Won't you?"

The tired expression returned, but Hazel thought he saw the first dawning light of comprehension in Cinder's eyes, and wondered why he hadn't realized that the promise of murder in her future would be the best way to achieve that.

"Sleep on it, if you're still unsure. You've got the time," he finished, before turning and leaving the room, closing the door softly behind him.


	4. Who Is In Control

" _Crash course in manipulation: You don't actually tell the person what you want them to do. You help them realize they want to do it, so it can't be traced back to you."_

\- Jeff Winger, _Community_

~0~

As she had nothing better to do while still bedridden and waiting to go under the blade, Cinder found herself later that day considering what her teammate had come to tell her. While she thought, she cautiously stretched out her bad leg, again and again, and repeatedly tensing the muscles without moving when that became too painful. If she was going to start taking these stupid exercises seriously, might as well start with the ones that did not require her to get out from under her blankets, and would not start irritating her wounded torso as well.

For all the hissing and glaring she had just done, she knew that she really had no cause to complain or argue. Ever since she had first arrived here, she mused, Hazel had always been her most reliable teammate. When Salem had not been around to do so, and where Watts and Tyrian were comparatively useless, it was largely Hazel who had taught her: how to master her Dust and swords, how to let harsh words roll off her back and turn complications into advantages, and how to keep a cool head under pressure.

Important lessons, all of them, that had allowed her to thrive here over these past seven years. Far better than she ever would have managed on her own, though it sickened her to admit that. She knew that that was exactly why Hazel had brought it up - there was nothing like the sharp burn of hatred to get one moving, and her old hatreds weren't exactly well-buried - so she supposed he'd been right to do it.

Because he had been mostly correct about all that he'd said, except for just one thing. Threatening to throw her away, back onto the streets of Mistral, was certainly a horrifying prospect; even as she was now, she had to remember that it was still a step up from where she'd been. But it wouldn't actually do any good, because that wasn't an option. She knew too much, had been too much, to be allowed to leave this team alive. But that was all right. She'd prefer to be killed, than to be forced back down into that place.

But even so, she would rather not consider the idea that she could sink that low at all. Had she not always been trying to move upwards instead, as fast and as far as possible? Yet she'd been so focused on her goal that she hadn't considered that she'd one day have to struggle again, that those days weren't as far behind her as she had thought. Even now she could still be broken, through no fault of her own. Even now...

 _("You're still very weak," that voice intones, so high above her but deep and low as a grave - not insulting, not criticizing, but simply stating a fact. The implication, of course, is that this is something that can and will be fixed.)_

Her eyes flicked across the room to the burnished black sword and bow mounted on the otherwise blank violet wall. They were the only adornments she had gone out of her way to put up in all this time. Well, save for her late mirror, which she had ended up wrenching off and throwing to the floor, where it had smashed into a thousand pieces. The first time she'd seen up close the repulsive mess her face had become, she had...experienced a momentary loss of composure.

But no matter, such a thing wouldn't happen again. She would fix herself, as she always had before, as she should have been doing months ago. Work harder in between her sessions with Salem, force her body to move to her will again just as the treatment was forcing it all back together again, one burnt and shriveled muscle and sinew at a time. Try to experiment with her fractured vision, adjust to the lack of depth perception, so when she was finally able to get her weapons in her hands again, she would have less of a problem re-adjusting to them. And before that -

A knock at the door interrupted Cinder's thoughts and her practice, and she sat up to listen. From behind the door, she heard Emerald's voice: "Cinder? Are you up? May we come in?"

 _Ugh._

With a heavy sigh, Cinder shoved off the covers and stepped gingerly onto the floor, bracing one hand on the bed to steady herself. All things considered, her left leg wasn't as bad as her completely devastated arm. At the very least, it could still _move._ But apparently, the nerves and muscles around her knee had been very badly damaged, and even though it was working better than it had been initially, when she couldn't even put weight on it without collapsing like a stringless puppet, it still wasn't at all reliable.

Well, if she fell over again, at least Emerald would hear the crash and come running in.

Dragging her leg behind her instead of trying to walk on it, she did at least make it across the room without incident. She felt the usual twinge of vulnerability, being in only a nightdress and head-to-foot bandages and opening the door to see her subordinates fully dressed, but it went away quickly. It didn't matter anyway, considering what she expected that they had come for.

"Thank you," Emerald said as Cinder stepped back to let them in. The thief watched her carefully, and her movements were tense and guarded, like a mouse spotting a cat and wondering whether to run. This was the first interaction they'd had since Cinder had thrown her out yesterday, so she supposed it was reasonable. "Are you feeling all right today, ma'am? Does anything hurt?"

 _Everything hurts, you idiot._ But Cinder bit back the exasperated huff, and made a _so-so_ gesture with her good hand. She tapped her bandaged arm, turned to motion towards the bathroom, and raised her eyebrow, hoping the question would be understood. Really, the less miming was required in conversations these days, the better; she'd already felt enough of a fool practically playing charades with Hazel before.

Thankfully, it was. "You want help with your bandages?" Emerald asked, and when Cinder nodded, she darted off to the bathroom cabinet. "Right - you can sit, I'll be just a second!"

Sighing softly, Cinder turned and limped back towards the bed. Mercury didn't say anything, but she was aware of him close behind her, hovering and trying not to look as if he was. When she sat down on the bed, arranging her pillows behind her for support, he sat on the floor right next to her leg, leaning against the metal frame and stiff mattress. He noticed her watching him and gave her a small smile, which she tried to return, thinking to herself that he looked like a big gray guard dog sitting at her feet. She almost felt the urge to pet his head, but decided against it.

She could hear the soft sound of water running from the bathroom. Carefully, she started to strip the bandages from her useless arm, dropping the dirty fabric into the wastebasket at the side of the bed. They had a routine for dressing her wounds, now: first her arm, then her side, then her leg, and then finally her face. The feeling of a wet cloth and topical gel in her empty eye socket was the only part that still actively disgusted her, so she preferred to save it for last. For whatever reason, the predictability of the process made her feel a little better about it all. A moment later, Emerald came back out, arms filled with first aid supplies, which she laid out neatly on the bare nightstand.

"Still your arm first?" Emerald asked, and Cinder nodded, propping the dead arm up with her working arm: always how they began. She no longer had to worry about infection setting in or spreading, now that the limb would soon be gone, but the familiar comforting touch was admittedly very welcome.

Emerald knelt down, taking her wrist lightly in one hand and starting to run the warm, damp washcloth over the limb with the other. Both touches were impossibly gentle. She did not meet her leader's eyes, only watching her own work. Cinder, on the other hand, loathed the sight of her own ruined flesh, and kept her eyes on Emerald's face. Much as she did not want to, she knew she had to try and say something. Emerald and Mercury both were able to decipher her strangled whispers by now, she reminded herself. With them both so close to her, it should be okay...

"Y...Y-You t-t-two," she tried, already feeling her throat starting to burn with the effort. Both of them looked up at her, startled; this was usually a silent procedure. "I-I...Aat...B-Bea...con..."

"Ma'am, it's okay," Emerald said, seeing the beginnings of irritation on her face. "You don't have to talk about that."

Cinder shook her head and tapped her throat emphatically. _Yes, I do, if it'll keep you two docile._ "Y-You...cahh..." _Carried_ was too long, she thought, best try again. "T-T-Took me...hhh-home?"

"Oh...Yeah." Emerald looked even more surprised by the question. "Yeah, we did."

Mercury smirked. "Yep. I got you all the way back here from Vale." He touched his thumb and forefinger together in an ' _okay'_ gesture. "Don't worry, though; you're light as a feather."

"He dropped you," Emerald said, pointing at her partner with a falsely innocent smile.

"Wha - I did not!"

"He did."

"I _did not!"_

"Did."

The rapid, staggered breathing that came out of Cinder's mouth didn't quite count as a laugh, but it was enough to surprise all of them into momentary silence. "Ss...o...kay," she assured them. "Y-You...c-c-came...back. Sss-saved...me."

A small, startled squeak escaped Emerald, and if it wouldn't have hurt her to do it, Cinder really would have laughed. "Of...Of _course_ we did!" Emerald exclaimed. "You would have died if we hadn't!"

"I assume you'd do the same for us," Mercury remarked, in a way that was too casual to be anything but a precaution.

But, it was a precaution that soared straight over Emerald's head. "Exactly!" she said brightly. "You saved us, too. We'd never leave you like that, not after what you've done for us."

 _You say that now, but oh, I wonder._ But dissatisfaction and mistrust were not what she needed to express right now. No, this moment required the reestablishment of trust and the reminder that they were all in the same boat right now. "We...a-a- _are_...l-leav...ing," she forced out. "H...Here...I-I know...Yyyou d-d-don't...want..."

She had to stop for a moment to breathe, and to her further embarrassment, her face grew hot. _You will do this,_ she ordered herself, feeling her subordinates' eyes on her, _you will do this, you will not let them pity you, you will_ not _be weak!_

"T...T'be...Hhhere."

Mercury's expression didn't change, but Emerald had the decency to look away in shame for a moment, her ministrations on Cinder's arm slowing slightly. She wondered briefly just how accurate Hazel's advice had been, and how timely, before deciding it didn't matter; she was fixing it now.

"I-I...h-hate it...here," she hissed, ignoring the warning burn in her chest and throat, squeezing her eyes shut with the effort it took to speak clearly. More venom was seeping into her voice than she'd intended, but she couldn't stop herself and rein it in. "I...I-I _hate_ th-this..."

"Cinder," Emerald began, consolingly, but carefully. "We understand; we're not going anywhere."

She shook her head insistently. "I...I d-d-don't...w-we..."

"Take it easy, boss," Mercury said. "We know we're stuck here until you're back on your feet, and it sucks for everyone. Honestly, I can't believe you've actually _lived_ here for so long, with the Grimm and the assholes and the weird magic and everything. It's enough to drive anyone crazy." He paused, something new occurring to him. "Which, come to think of it, might explain Scorp."

Cinder sighed deeply, awkwardly shrugging her working shoulder. Truth be told, she didn't think that this place in and of itself was all that bad, certainly not like these two made it out to be. But, as she was finding, that seemed to have a lot to do with the fact that she was free to _leave_ and get away from her teammates if she so chose. She had never felt trapped in her own home before.

"W-We'll...go...I-I puh- _prom-ise..._ Wh-When..."

"It's all right," Emerald insisted, replacing the cloth and starting to rub burn medicine into the charred flesh. Both of them had become used to this enough that it didn't bother them any more. At least, Cinder's skin didn't crawl at the feeling, and Emerald's face was no longer reluctant and tense, her hands well-practiced by now. "We'll help you as long as you need."

"Right," Mercury said, standing up again. "Just don't rush it and hurt yourself any more, or none of us will ever get out of here." He looked down at her over his shoulder, and clinked one metal shin against the other. "I fought with my fucked-up legs too early, and you remember how that turned out?"

Cinder nodded, while Emerald looked mildly disgusted. She'd been worried that after she'd come all that way to recruit an assassin, she'd lose him immediately; the exertion of the battle had driven long metal shards deep into Mercury's thighs, and he was lucky he hadn't died of infection before she'd even given him his first assignment.

"Yeah. Like I said before, this isn't forever. And when we _do_ get out of here..." The corner of his mouth turned up in a predator's smirk. "You'll let me knock that brat's head sideways before you burn her? We owe everyone who got away in one piece at least that, don't we?"

She had to give him credit; that got another cracked, amused breath out of her. She nodded in agreement, and something brightened in his eyes. "Nice. I guess you'll want me out of here now, though, since that arm's almost done?"

"Right," Emerald confirmed. She spread the last bits of gel over Cinder's hand and reached for the roll of bandages, starting to deftly wind them around her leader's arm. "Shoo," she added, with a quick, dismissive wave.

Mercury snickered, but obeyed. "Fine, fine...See you girls in a bit."

When he left, the room was silent for a long while. Cinder lay there as still and as pliantly as she could. She allowed Emerald to adjust her clothes as she needed, take off the many bandages around her leg and torso, and run the warm, soapy water and cold gel on the burns. She noticed, from the brief glimpses she dared to take of them, that they were slowly but steadily healing.

She kept her eye closed and her breathing deliberately calm, she did not make a sound, and she found that this served several purposes at once. It let her throat rest after all her hard work, it reassured Emerald that she would not lose her temper and harm her again, it let her zone out and ignore that she was being moved around and handled like a doll. But most importantly, it gave her time to quietly think about her next move.

She liked to think that in the past year or so of actually leading a team of her own, instead of constantly being shoved to the side by her much older teammates, she had learned the finer points of what it was to control another person. It did not take much, if one was smart, and could understand how people worked. Mercury, for example, was easy to handle. He was a simple boy with simple needs, having been raised with little else. All she had to do was keep him interested, make sure he knew that he was on the winning side, and above all, _never_ remind him of Marcus Black.

Emerald was a bit more complicated, she reflected, opening her eye a little to watch the girl focus on her work. The prize jewel of her little collection had to be treated with delicate care. She knew full well that the only reason that Emerald had become so attached to her was because she had been in the right place at the right time to catch the thief, to appear out of the blue as her savior. Emerald loved her, deeply and desperately, but that love and devotion could have gone to anyone. It had nothing to do with Cinder herself, of that she was certain. So the possibility, however slim, still existed that it could be transferred to someone else even now.

As such, she always needed to strike a perfect balance between luring the girl close to her with praise, with kind touches and reminders of how special she and her Semblance were, and keeping her too afraid to run from her side with just as many reminders of where she'd be if Cinder _hadn't_ been there to take her in, with cold reprimands and quick, well-placed discipline. The carrot and stick method, she had heard it called, many years ago by the particularly unscrupulous husbands and wives of her birth village. Or was it carrot _on_ a stick? Well, that part wasn't important. All that was important was that it worked.

"Cinder?" She opened her eye fully, and saw that the bandaging around her torso was finished. "I'm going to start on your face now. Do you want to take a break before I do, or...?"

Cinder shook her head. Best to get it over with, for one thing. And for another, it would provide a prime opportunity to start dangling that carrot in front of Emerald's face again. Now that she thought about it seriously, it really had been far too long.

So she waited patiently as Emerald made another quick dash to the bathroom sink to dampen and lather up a new washcloth, and then came back to finish up. Normally, Emerald would stand up to work on her face, knowing it agitated Cinder and wanting to keep her distance, both for Cinder's comfort and her own safety. Now, however, Cinder made a point of clearing a space on her bed and patting the mattress when she walked back in, inviting her subordinate to sit next to her.

Emerald stopped in front of the bed, washcloth, cotton balls, and gel tube in hands, doing a particularly good impression of a startled doe. "Oh...You want me to...?"

Cinder nodded, keeping up her patient, expectant expression, and patted the space again. Cautiously, as if trying not to tread on glass, Emerald stepped closer and sat down on the bed next to her, laying her supplies on the sheets. "Okay. I'm going to take the bandages off of your face now. Are you ready?"

She nodded, and allowed Emerald to reach behind her head and untie the bandages that wrapped around the left half of her face. Normally, she shut her eye until it was over, continuing to block the process out as best she could. Now, she tried her best to maintain eye contact. And as much as she disliked it...With as sorry a state as she was in, it wasn't difficult to maintain a wounded and put-upon look while she decided what she would try to say next. But, as it happened, she didn't need to figure that out; this, too, Emerald was apparently taking care of for her.

"Cinder, I...I'm sorry, if I've been frustrating you lately," she said softly, her hand stopping halfway up to Cinder's face, the bandages curled by her knee.

Cinder's heart leaped in her chest at the words. This always happened sooner or later, after some careful pulling of emotional strings. But somehow, she had expected such a thing to take longer and be far more difficult if she were clearly struggling to speak and move, much less intimidate or sweet-talk somebody. But, even as proud of it as she was, it appeared she had underestimated the effect she had on her Emerald. This was going to be _easy._

So, for the first time in a long time, a genuine smile came to her face as she shook her head. It was a long sentence she had in mind, but Emerald would wait for her to finish. And now that they were this close, she could talk even more softly, enough that it wouldn't hurt but could still be somewhat intelligible.

"Y-You dih-d-didn't mean it. I-I for-forgive...y-you..." The next words brought back images from over a year ago, of a no-longer-starving girl falling at her feet in abject relief, but hopefully Emerald would not make that particular connection. "Th-Th-Thank...you..."

And it did not appear that she did, as that same expression brightened her face now. "It's okay. I just want to help you. This..." She finally started to dab the cloth onto Cinder's burnt cheek. "I'm glad I can at least do this for you, if I can't...Well, the point is, this is helping, right?"

Cinder, who was trying not to shudder at the cold, wet touch, gave a small nod anyway. This _was_ help, she told herself, this was her own relief. After that, the process went on in silence again. It was much easier now than it had been a month ago. There was no pain, for the most part, and no more dead skin coming off of the wounds as they were washed clean and then patted dry.

The small, more tender area in and around her missing eye being cleared of any buildup, with delicate little pats of the cotton ball, was more difficult to sit still for. She didn't like to think about how it looked; the flesh inside the socket had been burned as well, and inserting a conformer into it to keep the shape would have irritated the wounds too much, or so Watts had informed her. That didn't matter much, though, as she didn't want an artificial eye anyway if it couldn't allow her to see again.

Emerald always handled the wound on her face with the most time and care, but she was still able to finish in a few minutes. With one last wrapping of bandages around her head, she was done, and leaned back to get a better look at her work.

"Does that feel okay? They're not too tight, are they?" When Cinder shook her head no, she started to get up from the bed to leave, setting the remaining supplies on the nightstand. "All right, then. If you need anything else, you know you can always - "

But she broke off when Cinder unexpectedly grabbed her hand, stopping her before she could get out of reach. Still trying for as kind and grateful an expression as she could, she let go to gesture at the space beside her again, and then opened her arm invitingly.

Back when she had first acquired the thief, she had noticed right away that Emerald responded to seemingly small gestures, like brief embraces and gentle strokes of the hair, far more strongly than most people did. As if there were electricity in her fingertips, that could make Emerald freeze and squirm: startled at first by the attention, so much so that she couldn't speak, but soon excited and leaping at any chance to earn more. Clearly, the poor girl had been starved for love and human contact all her life...And, well, had Cinder not promised that she would never let her go hungry again?

Still too stunned to do anything else, Emerald let Cinder pull her onto the bed, wrap her good arm around her, and bring her in close. As with many things lately, it would be better if she had the use of both arms - Emerald _loved_ to be held tight - but one would have to do. Cinder kept her smile as she leaned back, settling them both down on the soft blankets and pillows. They had done this sometimes before, when Cinder deemed it necessary: laying together in solitude and silence, pressed close together. Emerald didn't feel the same under her arm as those nights, she was surprised to find. She wouldn't fully relax, or meet Cinder's eye. Cinder could feel her heartbeat: mouselike as well, quick and fluttering and fearful. No matter. She knew by now what to do.

 _Gently, everything gently...I won't hurt you now._

She set Emerald's head on her intact shoulder, and rhythmically stroked her hair, making sure to lightly brush her forehead and neck each time. It did the trick: after a minute or two of shifting around, trying to get used to these touches again, Emerald lay still. Her breathing calmed, and her eyelids even started to droop a little; gods knew she had been getting as little sleep as Cinder had lately. However, merely this was not enough to implant what she needed. So when she started to feel the girl drifting off, she moved just enough to rouse her, and bent her head down close enough to speak comfortably.

"W...W-We've...wwworked...hard," she whispered into Emerald's ear, and she stirred enough to answer.

"Yeah...You've done a lot."

Cinder hummed against her forehead. She pressed down a shade harder, running her fingers through Emerald's hair. "May...be."

"Really! I'm sure if you just kept at it more - " Cinder paused for a moment mid-stroke and dropped the smile, and Emerald faltered, stopped, and picked a new train of thought. "I mean, it's hard for you and it hurts, but you're still doing so well."

 _Good choice._ The petting resumed.

"And...If I've been making it worse for you, I'm so sorry. I'm trying to make it easier, I swear."

"I know." She leaned over the last inch or so to kiss Emerald's forehead, and could practically _feel_ the thrill that ran through the girl's body at the touch of her lips. There was a reason she saved them for truly special occasions. "Y-You're...so good."

Emerald wriggled happily under her arm for a second before relaxing, snuggling up closer to Cinder, who decided she'd allow it. Looking closely at Emerald, she realized that she hadn't seen this star-bright shine in her eyes, or this smile on her face, since Beacon. The girl made a sound as if to say something, but broke off, and Cinder waited for a minute until she felt ready to speak. When she did, it was in a murmur so quiet that Cinder had to pay very close attention to hear it. Not very considerate of her newly bad ear, but she appreciated the sense of intimacy nonetheless.

"...Cinder?"

"Mm?"

"I know I should have told you this way sooner, but I..."

Emerald stopped, bit her lip and dropped her eyes. She paused for so long that Cinder started to wonder what could possibly be so hard to spit out, before she spoke again.

"I'm so glad you found me. Without you, I don't know what I'd do. Wh-When we found you hurt like that, on the tower...I've, I'd never been so scared in my life."

Cinder recognized the trembling in Emerald's voice as one she had only heard once before, from another night in her arms, confessing what had been done to her that she'd wound up on the streets. That had involved copious amounts of sobbing and sizable tear stains on her dress, and she fervently hoped she wouldn't have to endure a repeat now.

"I thought for sure you were dead...I thought I would never - !"

But she broke off with a squeak when Cinder laid another quick kiss on her cheek, just at the corner of her mouth, and tucked her head into her chest. It might be harder for Emerald to hear her from there, Cinder realized, resting her chin on the younger girl's head, but it would also be harder for her to talk. And she knew that Emerald would feel safer the closer she was to her, anyway.

"I-I...here. I'm here. Not...luh...l-leaving."

Emerald didn't answer. She brushed her arms hesitantly against Cinder's body, and when Cinder did not push or protest, wrapped them around her waist and held on tight, as if to reassure herself that the words were true. The embrace stung a little, but she had managed to avoid the badly burned areas, which Cinder supposed she appreciated.

"I'm...g-glad...too."

The arms around her tightened. "Cinder...?" came the muffled voice again. "Is...Is it okay if I stay here for a little bit longer? Like this, I mean, with you."

Cinder smiled again. That would work perfectly; the longer this went on, the stronger the impact that would be left when it was over. This was the crucial component that she had been recently failing to provide: a memory of softness and safety for Emerald to fall back on during the times when Cinder had to treat her harshly, to remind her of what she had to endure the pain to earn back.

 _You see, who else would take care of you like this? Why would you even think of leaving me?_

Even better, in that case, that Emerald was already thinking of what had brought them together to begin with; she, too, had a place that she would rather die than be forced back to. In this, and this alone, they were one and the same, and Emerald knew that as well as she did.

Such a delicate game she played with this girl's heart. Such a careful balance, which it was downright dangerous to lose track of for this long...She certainly would not make the same mistake again.

"S-Stay...forever."

~0~

"All right, again!"

 _Whack._

"Again!"

 _Whack._

"One more won't kill ya, come on!"

 _Whack!_

When Cinder's fist collided with his gloved palm again, Mercury closed his fingers over it with a smile. Cinder did not pull away but sat still on her unmade bed, shoulders tensed and breathing hard, privately grateful for the fleeting break.

"It's a pretty good idea, working on this stuff too," Mercury remarked. "If _I_ can't get rusty, _you_ sure as hell can't. But you know, boss, you don't have to go easy on me."

Cinder smirked, and tugged her hand away. She spread all five fingers out, and flexed them twice.

"Ten more?" Nod, nod. "Cool. Just make 'em count."

"Mm." She took one more deep breath, then pulled her fist back again: _whack, whack, whack, whack, whack,_ in quick succession into the leather.

"You're going fast, but you're not going hard. You still got muscle, use it!"

 _Whack._

"Pretend my hand is a Grimm you're killing."

 _Whack._

"Harder! It's a Huntsman!"

 _Whack!_

"It's Mustache's smug ass grin!"

 _WHACK!_

"It's Ruby's stupid grinning face, break it!"

 _ **WHACK!**_

"Wow, that actually kind of hurt," Mercury said, shaking his wrist. "You've still got it. When she fixes up your leg all the way, we can start kicking too."

Cinder nodded. Much as her slow progress still frustrated her, it _did_ feel somewhat good to actually be moving around, even though it hurt. Lying in bed all day and night, though relatively painless, would be hell on her muscles in the long run. She would remind herself of this often, she decided.

"That might be tough to start back up, too, though. Even if you can't use it, you can balance better with both arms than with just one. Getting one of them chopped messes with your center of gravity and shit, and that's especially bad with you losing your depth perception and all." When Cinder raised her remaining eyebrow, he explained, "Emerald's been swiping Mustache's medical books to see if she can find anything that will help us. He hasn't noticed yet, and I've been trying to read along with the amputee bits."

"And shockingly enough, you're not half bad at it," Emerald remarked, coming out of the bathroom with a half-full glass of water. "Slow, but not bad."

"Damn tiny letters. And weird words. At least the pictures are cool."

"Yeah." Emerald handed the glass to Cinder, who accepted it at once. "I'm sorry I can't give you anything else, but you're not supposed to eat or drink anything but water until after your surgery. I don't know if you'll be up to eating right afterward, but when you are we'll make you a nice meal, okay?"

"What do you mean, _we_ , you still can't cook for sh - _ow,_ don't pull my hair!"

"I'm still learning! It's not like you're any better. And, um, while we're on the subject," Emerald added, turning back to Cinder. "Just out of curiosity...Where does Salem get clean running water from out here? Or all the food, for that matter? Because, you know, we're not exactly near...anything."

Cinder, gulping down the water, just shrugged. So long as it was all here and freely available to her, she saw no reason to question it. When she'd finished the last drops, she leaned over to set the empty glass on the nightstand, and winced when her dead arm flopped onto her side with the movement.

Emerald looked at the arm nervously. "Is there anything you're worried about? About today?"

Cinder shook her head. The idea of undergoing another major surgery at Watts' hands repulsed her, especially since up until now, she'd been competent enough to avoid ending up on his table too often. But, she had reasoned, all that was really going to happen was that she'd be put to sleep, and then wake up with this useless hunk of dead flesh finally _off_ of her body. And in any case, she trusted her teammate with exactly two things: her physical health and the success of a mission. So it wasn't as if anything would go wrong.

All she needed to do was prepare her body to continue her work and recovery. So coming to that...

She tapped at the binder also resting on her nightstand and looked pointedly at Emerald, who picked it up and started to flip through the pages of rehab exercises. "Sure! Which ones do you want to start with, stretches?"

Reflexively she shook her head - the majority of them were awkward to perform and looked downright embarrassing - but then thought better of it and reluctantly nodded. At least she wasn't in a hospital gown just yet, so she wouldn't look _that_ stupid. Though the fact that the only clothes that were easy for her to put on and exert herself in were Mercury's T-shirt and sweatpants didn't sit well with her either. They covered her better and we're easier to put on than most of the contents of her closet, which she couldn't quite stop giving longing looks toward every so often, but even they didn't hide all her scars...Just another reason to take her new work more seriously. She pulled the binder down so she could see its contents, and tapped the hamstring strengthening exercise.

"Sounds good," Emerald agreed, as Cinder rolled over onto her stomach and Mercury got up from the bed.

"Want me to grab the weights?" he asked, and seeing Cinder nod, turned to head into his and Emerald's room. "Got it. Just think about how you'll be able to get back to regular training again even sooner once that arm's out of your way."

Cinder didn't respond, focusing on straightening and raising her injured leg. She pictured standing up again without shaking or pain, holding her sword tight and running to leap back into the fray, fire warming her heart and flaring around her...

She moved the joint of her knee infinitesimally wrong, and a sharp jolt of pain ran down from knee to ankle, breaking her out of her fantasy with a hiss. Emerald's hand was immediately on her shoulder in silent support, but she said nothing, nor did she grip too tight. Cinder grimaced, determined not to drop her leg too early; she'd have to make her body strong enough just to function again, before she could even _think_ about throwing herself back into actual combat training.

No sense in rushing it, though, she reminded herself. Focus on one thing at a time, and she'd work her way back up to normal faster in the long run. She had to make steady progress, of course, enough to still be considered worth the time and effort. But so long as she did that, theoretically she had all the time in the world to recover, and prepare.

The past would never loose its burning grip on her heart, nor could she ignore how damn painful it was to exist in this body at present. But so long as she kept her eyes on the future where she didn't have to feel it anymore, she could keep from breaking down further in the meantime.

It took her a moment to realize that while she'd been thinking, Emerald was talking again. "...done, Cinder. Cinder? It's been thirty seconds, you can put it down now."

She dropped her leg back down to the mattress with a soft _whump_. That hadn't been too bad, she had to admit -

"I'm back!" Mercury announced as he burst in, raising something above his head like a prizefighter's trophy. "Found the cuff weights!"

Without further ado, he sauntered up and velcroed the soft but heavy red band tight around Cinder's ankle. She twisted around to look at him and at the new ten pounds of weight around her leg with a supremely distrustful expression.

Mercury smirked. "Come on, you asked for it. Without the extra weight, it barely counts as a rep."

Grumbling unintelligibly, Cinder laid back down and raised her leg again, and to her annoyance found that it was now twice as hard and twice as painful to keep it in the air. Well, just because she'd accepted that she'd be working her way back up from the bottom again, didn't mean that it was going to be any easier.

 _Focus. Just focus. One thing at a time._

So went the next couple hours. From all her refusal to try more than the bare minimum, she hadn't realized that she'd been provided with so much to do, for the muscles of her legs, her remaining arm, and stomach. There was even visual training for her ruined sight, which confused her and made her head hurt, but was supposed to help her not crash into things while trying to walk and not knock her dishes over while trying to eat and drink, so she would have to put up with it, too. The less she needed Emerald to help her with the most insignificant things, the better.

To her surprise, Cinder was able to lose herself in the movements, even in the pain, just as she would during any normal training session. She still needed to lean on Emerald when it came time to get off the bed and onto her feet, but if she was able to sit or lie down, she could get through exercises without either of them even touching her. She would, of course, personally incinerate anyone who tried to tell her, "You see, that wasn't so bad," but she had to admit...Maybe recovery wasn't the unreachably distant future she had been picturing it as.

And just like normal, she quickly lost track of time, so when Salem and Watts arrived to take her to surgery (the latter already dressed in scrubs and wheeling a gurney), it took her by surprise even though she'd been expecting them. Unlike Emerald and Mercury, though, she managed not to jump quite so badly when the door flew open seemingly of its own accord to reveal them on the other side.

"Are you ready, Cinder?" Salem asked. Purely rhetorically, of course, but the traces of pride in her smile made Cinder's heart jump.

She nodded, and waved Emerald and Mercury away when they approached to help her get out into the hall. Under her master's appraising eyes and her teammate's sneer (clear even with half his face under a surgical mask!), she had to show as little weakness as possible. More than that, show that even now she'd regained some strength.

And so to that end, Cinder stepped tentatively to the floor and started to limp across the room. Trying to put too much weight on her left leg was quite out of the question. As such, her gait was little more than an unbalanced hobble, as she shifted all her weight to her right leg and dragged her left behind her like a lame dog. She wasn't sure whether her face was starting to heat up out of exertion, shame, or more likely a mix of both. But, it was getting her to that gurney if only a little at a time, and right now that was what mattered.

It took her a solid minute to drag herself across the room and into the hall, and when she reached the gurney it took a small boost from Salem to get her fully onto it. She lay there on the hard cushion, on top of its currently-unnecessary straps, panting as if she'd just sprinted a mile. Every inch of her body was uncomfortably warm, pins and needles everywhere. Despite it all, the beginnings of a smile found its way onto her face, and the exhaustion she felt was satisfied, not frustrated.

Salem reached down to stroke Cinder's dead arm, from elbow to wrist. "I'm glad you're feeling so much better about this. Because when you've recovered, I have a special gift for you."

Gift? Cinder couldn't keep the mildly baffled look off her face. Not that it was uncharacteristic of Salem (her first new dress and her jewelry, her bedroom, her old bowsword, her powers: all gifts from her master), but she wondered if what she was doing really warranted such a reward. Or any at all. Well, no matter; it wasn't her place to question the decision, anyway.

"No need to look so nervous," Salem turned back to tell Emerald and Mercury, as Cinder was wheeled away. "This may still be overwhelming to you, but I assure you, I've been taking good care of Cinder for years now. Soon enough, I'll have her back to you better than new."

 **~0~**


	5. Into Temptation

" _I want that star, I want it now, I want it all and I don't care how_

 _Careful what you wish, careful what you say_

 _Careful what you wish, you may regret it_

 _Careful what you wish, you just might get it."_

 _\- King Nothing,_ Metallica

~0~

"So," Emerald ventured once again, weeks later, helping Cinder make her way down the castle's winding halls. She wasn't being leaned on at the moment, but was still keeping a steadying hand on Cinder's left shoulder. Cinder had only tripped up a couple times on the way, and it wasn't as if she had been keeping count all the other trips here and back, but she supposed it was an improvement. "Does it feel all right?"

Cinder looked down at her still bandaged-up stump, considering the oft-repeated question as she gave it yet another experimental wiggle. The reopened end didn't hurt as much as she had expected it to, though she could thank her pain medication for that, so she looked back at Emerald and nodded. While Mercury hadn't been wrong about her center of gravity being affected (more gods-damned _swaying_ all over the place), it was nothing she couldn't handle, hadn't already been handling. Mostly, the absence just felt so _strange._

For the time being, in addition to her regular dose of painkillers, she'd been given more medication for the phantom limb pains that had already begun to sting and gnaw at her. Emerald had immediately noticed how she'd yelp and glare at the empty space every time one hit. So she had attempted to be helpful and read from her stolen book that it had to do with her nervous system getting confused at the loss of her arm, and that it should be only temporary, so she didn't need to worry about it...She had stopped then at Cinder's warning hiss. She wouldn't do anything more than that, now, not for something so minor. But she doubted the girl had any idea what Cinder was feeling, or even knew what she was talking about, so how did she think she was going to help?

Nothing to dwell on, though. Her real help was here, just at the end of this hall.

She nodded Mercury forward, and he picked up the pace, striding ahead. He still hadn't gotten used to the abnormally huge and heavy double doors of the council room, and when his knock was answered with a clear, "You may enter," he emitted a low grunt as he shoved one open.

As always, Salem waited for them at the head of the table, hands folded on the smooth violet crystal. Her smile as they walked in both calmed Cinder's heart and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "You look well, my girl. Have you been working hard?"

Cinder lifted her head higher, but hesitated for a split second before nodding. Salem had never been given to mocking her subordinates, but certainly what she'd been doing lately couldn't count as hard work, compared to what she was meant to be doing for her master.

"Excellent. Then I'd like you to show me. Stop there," she said, punctuating the order with a gesture. Cinder froze in her tracks a second before Emerald did, and the younger girl bumped into her shoulder with a soft _oof._ Salem did not break eye contact with Cinder, as she motioned her forward. "And walk to me."

Cinder's heart skipped a beat. All right. This was fine. She could do this. Never mind how very, very far the end of the table suddenly looked from the doorway.

The unspoken _on your own_ at the end of the command was clear, but apparently not to everyone; in order to obey, she had to nudge Emerald off of her and motion for her to stay put. For the first few steps, she tried to shift as much weight as she could to her right side and drag her left leg, as she had to cross her bedroom, moving awkwardly but harmlessly along.

"Properly, Cinder."

She should have known it couldn't be that easy. She paused a moment to adjust herself, gingerly laying her left foot flat on the floor. The instant she put weight on it, pain shot straight up her leg, and she bit her lip to keep from hissing. It ached, and trembled a little, but it held her upright. Now came the difficult part: actually walking on it.

It was even slower work than usual. She kept her eye focused only on the chair, and all her energy focused on keeping her balance, as if her life depended on it.

 _Don't fall,_ she told herself, willing her leg to not buckle, fighting the increasingly insistent reflex to try and grab something.

 _Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall._

She did not think that she would be punished, should she fail and wind up on the floor again. The humiliation she would face then, and the fear roiling in her blood now, was harrowing enough to push her forward. There were more things in her life than pride and hate to motivate her; a truth she would not admit even to herself, not without that unblinking scarlet gaze boring into her to draw it out.

 _One step at a time. Oh, gods, don't fall..._

It didn't hurt as much anymore, at least, but every step was too long and too slow and she was painfully aware of that. When she finally collapsed into the chair, it was far enough from tripping into the thing that Salem didn't comment on it, but near enough that she heard a muffled yelp from Emerald behind her. She did not allow herself to relax, even as she got herself into a proper sitting position.

 _("Back straight. Eyes up. I said look me in the_ eyes, _Cinder.")_

Salem was different than _him,_ though.

"Very good. You _are_ progressing; take care not to forget that."

Salem smiled, and her eyes pierced instead of burned. Either way, Cinder could not move or look away if she tried. Her master did not try to touch her yet, just looked her up and down.

"Your wounds are healing nicely, as well."

She reached down to run an ice-cold hand over Cinder's thigh, which was as usual unbandaged for the purposes of this session. The points of her nails did not press down quite hard enough to hurt, not yet. But it was only the years of familiarity that kept Cinder from squirming as they ran over her still-tender burns, brushed aside the skirt of her dress to bare her skin. The fabric was still fairly thin, but the solid crimson dress was the most modest thing she owned, and it still didn't quite cover all of her wounds. The way the left sleeve hung limply off her stump, accentuating her loss, didn't help either.

"Even so...It will take far longer to fix your torso and throat, but I believe it should only take two or three more sessions before your leg is fully healed. Take your breath, and we will begin."

This was all the time she would get to prepare. Cinder did not bother to relax her body or close her eyes, it would do her no good. She took in as long and deep a breath as she was allowed, to brace herself. But as soon as she let it out, the magic hit, and all the air was blown straight out of her lungs, her mouth contorting itself into the shape of a scream.

She barely felt her master's nails digging into the meat of her leg; that tiny sting was drowned out in the ferocious pain surging up and down the rest of her leg. This, too, did not burn, and she thought she would have preferred it to; at least the feeling of fire in her blood would be _familiar._ This too was cold and sharp as ice, and it grabbed, yanked, and tore at her flesh like claws.

 _Growing pains,_ she always thought, the only even faintly clear thing in her mind. Her vision faded in and out of blinding white and swimming red, no sound made it past the mounting pressure in her ears, and she felt nothing of her body but the parts being manipulated beneath her skin. Muscles and tendons stretching and twisting as they were forced back together, forced to work again. Nerves sparking like live wires as they came back to life. Another presence altogether deep inside, that she knew instinctively was separate from herself, like the roar of a storm in the back of her skull.

She didn't know how long it lasted. The first times, she had tried to count, to try and ground herself in reality. But she had abandoned that attempt quickly, after realizing how hopeless it was to try and _think_ through this. But she could feel that presence as it started to slither up past her hip, wrap around her stomach, her lungs, her heart, and _squeeze._ Something of it was spreading, seeping into her like water into a sponge and making her insides contract, hard, and distantly she was aware that she must be trying to scream.

Sharp and jagged, it slid up into her throat and she couldn't breathe, it _ripped_ into her and she couldn't _breathe -_

"Enough."

Cinder's mind snapped back to the real world like the band of a slingshot, and she caught the faint scent of cold sweat in the air - how long had it been this time?

She hung in one of the moments of dazed disorientation that always followed this, where she'd sit there with her eye wide and her jaw slack, as if she were concussed. As her vision and hearing steadily returned, some indistinct part of her brain registered that these moments were growing a little shorter each time; at least she was getting marginally used to all this.

Salem had retracted her nails, but her hand still lay cold on Cinder's leg. She glanced down, and just barely caught the last traces of dark... _something_ disappearing into her body. A deep, groaning ache lingered in her muscles, the kind that told her she wouldn't be able to move properly for the rest of the day while her body adjusted. Not that she could move properly as it was, but still. Just a slight delay in her road back to relative normalcy -

But, as if she had heard the thought, Salem's next words were, "Clearly the affected parts of your upper body are still too sensitive to endure the full extent of this method; until you become stronger, you will have to continue taking it in short doses. It will take some more time before this will heal you instead of destroy your throat and organs in the attempt."

Cinder tried not to squirm at the thought, still faintly nauseated. It was made easier, though, by how Salem wasn't fixing her with the stern glare that usually accompanied her not performing up to standards. "However, your limbs seem to bear the treatment well. As such, I think it's time to give you your gifts."

 _Oh?_ Cinder perked up. She'd forgotten about that.

"You should be ready to take your bandages off for good soon. Tell me," Salem asked, eying the left half of Cinder's face. "When you can no longer hide behind them, what will you do? Have you given it any thought?"

Cinder swallowed, hesitantly shaking her head. She'd been trying not to think about having her scarring on permanent full display, and she fought down the urge to subtly tug her dress back down over her slightly bleeding thigh.

"I didn't think so. However, I have." Cinder was even more surprised to see her master reach down under the table and bring up a large black box sealed up with thin tape to set on the table. Seeing her lean forward to inspect it closer instead of taking it, Salem added, "Go on. It's for you, open it."

Cinder glanced over at Emerald and Mercury, who were looking just as puzzled as she felt, before deciding that she didn't need their help for something as small as this. She wrapped her right arm around the box to pull it in, slit the tape through with her thumbnail, and opened one flap to peer inside. When she realized what the contents were, though, all her caution vanished in a flash, and she couldn't contain a high-pitched cry of excitement.

"My, my...You've grown up so well, but in some ways, you certainly haven't changed at all."

Cinder barely registered the words, or the thin but pleased "Ahhh, ahhh!" noises that were coming out of her own mouth. Before she knew it she'd buried half her arm in the box, shuffling through the pile of thick fabrics, all different shades of red, gold and dark metal, even some Dust crystals. After so long, all the new textures felt positively blissful on her bare skin...She hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd been _missing_ the chance to do one of the things she loved most. Already, she could practically feel the stress melting off her shoulders at the idea of these fabrics and a needle and thread in her -

Oh.

"What's wrong?" Salem asked, on seeing her arm go still and her face fall. "You don't like them?"

For a solid few seconds - a few seconds too long - Cinder stared dumbly at the box. She had to be missing something here, but she didn't particularly feel like miming her questions out. So she gestured over her shoulder for Emerald, who came trotting over to listen to her mangled explanation. Mercury, not having been ordered to do otherwise, trailed along at his partner's heels.

"Um...She doesn't think she'll be able to sew anything with only one hand. She appreciates it, though!"

Cinder briefly glared at her over her shoulder; she hadn't added that second half and she would have to educate her subordinate on what a proper translation entailed later.

Salem paid the oversight no attention. "I am well aware, Cinder," she said patiently. "There isn't any way for me to restore your arm to normal, that's true. But I believe this presents a perfect opportunity to replace it."

Cinder blinked. She moved over in her seat to rap her knuckles against Mercury's metal knee, and pointed questioningly at her stump. She'd been told that her nerves had been burnt too badly to attach any sort of useful prosthetic to it, but maybe...

"No, dear, not like that. What I have in mind is much better. No offense to you, boy," Salem added, with a half-hearted hand wave to Mercury.

The split second Mercury realized he was being addressed he stood up ramrod straight, as if given an electric shock. "Uh. None taken. Ma'am."

Salem continued looking at Cinder as if he hadn't spoken. "An entirely natural new arm, far stronger than your original. I have done this in the past, for followers loyal enough to have earned it, so it is a process I know well by now. But let me make this clear to you: I know from that experience that it will be significantly more painful than the rest of your healing, and that you will need to bring your physical strength and mental fortitude to a peak for this to work. Do you still want it?"

Though Cinder wouldn't dare interrupt, internally she was screaming " _Yes!"_ long before her master had finished speaking. And as soon as the question was out of her mouth, she was straightening up and nodding as enthusiastically as she could, without losing her composure and coming off as overeager again.

Salem looked pleased by the response, and abruptly rose from her chair. "Good. Then your teammates can take your new things back to your room for you, and you can come with me outside."

Cinder's insides immediately went ice-cold, and her body instinctively went very, very still. Behind her, a sliver of a yelp escaped Emerald, before the girl could bite it back.

Silence hung in the air for a moment, as Salem looked expectantly at Cinder. Logically, Cinder knew that there was no way she could have heard the instruction wrong. But still, she could not resist looking over her shoulder out the window, at the endless expanse of Grimm and spawning pools, then looking back up at her master and pointing at it in a silent question.

 _...Outside?_

~0~

This was, bar none, Cinder thought, the strangest thing she had been told to do in the past seven years.

She hadn't seen any of her teammates on the way out of the castle, carried like a child in her master's arms, and for that she was thankful. Well, there _had_ been the loud, telltale clattering from the heights of the highest-ceilinged corridors, that meant Tyrian was skulking around in the rafters and walls again and had gotten curious enough to come take a closer look. If she had to guess, he was probably now perched on one of the outcroppings on the castle's surface like a particularly ugly gargoyle, twitching his tail and watching their progress across the red earth plain.

She didn't bother to lift her head and look over Salem's shoulder to check if she was right. The more...interesting spectacle was all around them: flocks of Griffon and Nevermore circling overhead, one Beowolf after another popping up on the ridges around them to stare, the feeling of an entire world with its eyes on her, ready to rush in and tear her to bloody shreds if she showed the slightest weakness. Not too much different of a feeling than normal, if she was being honest with herself. But even so, it was unsettlingly difficult to fight down the flaring survival instincts that screamed at her to _run._ It wasn't as if she could do that, anyway, with her leg and lungs still loudly and painfully protesting their treatment.

All things considered, she thought she was doing a remarkable job at staying calm -

"Don't be afraid."

Apparently not, then.

She glanced up. Salem looked down at her rattled and confused protégée with an expression that was affectionate enough, but that made something curl inside her stomach, as if she had been caught doing something embarrassing.

"No sense in denying it. Though they will never harm you while you still bear my blessing, the Grimm come because your fear is tantalizing to them. But you have nothing to worry about, Cinder. You do trust me, don't you?"

Well. There was nothing she could do with _that_ but nod obediently, so she did.

"You've been trained better than to cower. But if it's any comfort to you, this part, at least, will be over quickly."

 _What part?_ she wanted to ask, perhaps impudently. However, the need for that question quickly evaporated, when she turned her head to see where they were going, anyway, and her eye landed on a spawning pool that they happened to be getting very, very close to.

Cinder froze stiff, her eye widening, as suddenly, everything made perfect, horrible sense.

 _Oh..Oh, this can't be how...You're not really going to - ?!_

But Salem was kneeling next to it, moving to set Cinder down on the strip of land between her and the bubbling edge of the pool. It took a ridiculous amount of her self-control to fight down the urge to recoil, or worse, cling. She could not, however, keep her breathing from speeding up, as she was laid on her back on the warm ground. Nor could she help from looking up at her master in a way that she hoped didn't look _too_ much like a betrayed puppy.

 _You're going to put me in there!_

"Yes, that's right. It won't last long. And this time, it won't hurt. I am here, I have complete control over the process. Are you ready?"

 _No, absolutely not, I don't want this at all!_ some small, cowardly part of her shrieked. But at the same time, rumbling in the back of her mind -

 _("Feel nothing._ Fear _nothing. Your tears will mean_ nothing, _not to anyone.")_

Cinder swallowed hard, and nodded her assent.

She wasn't sure whether she was pushed in by Salem, or dragged in by something else. All she knew was, she thought she saw Salem's smile widen, in the split second before everything went black.

Everything black, everything silent, everything pressing in on her like setting cement. As with the pain of her body's restoration, time and the world seemed to stop around her. She tried to open her eye, her mouth, and felt something thick and liquid, neither hot nor cold, flowing around her sockets and down her throat. She could not hear, she could not see, she didn't know what was up or down.

But, as promised, it did not hurt. She felt no pain, she felt no...anything. She got the faint senses of sinking, of being locked in place, of suffocation. But she couldn't quite feel any part of her own body. Maybe one faint trace of ice, still clinging to her, but...She was nothing, surrounded by nothing, shreds of soul swept away into the silent whirlwind, lost and alone, save for the one spike of fear through what felt like her heart -

 _you_

She felt her jaw drop wider, slow, as if pried open. No. She was _not_ alone down here, sinking faster and faster into -

 _I could kill you easily, if that's what I wanted._

Dark. So dark. So silent and so loud at the same time, somewhere someone was screaming her life out and floating above it she couldn't tell whether it was her master's voice or her -

 _That never occurred to you before, did it?_ With iron-vice fingers to grip her jaw.

No -

Something was dragging itself down her face, all claws and shadow and dread. The bloody handprint, heavy and sticky-warm on her cheek as -

No -

 _You are terror and desperation,_ whispered the thing washing over her and saturating her like acid rain, whispered to her without words, _you are weakness and flight, a little thing to be consumed, you are nothing -_

The hands around her _neck -_

Feel nothing, fear nothing -

 _Are you alone now, girl?_

Words with no voice, a body with no face, into the black as the red bleeds in, no, _please,_ _no - !_

 _Alone alone alone,_ swirling around her, tightening, _helpless child, you are me and I am you -_

Feel nothing, fear nothing, feel nothing -

A heart pounding about to burst with horror, _your heart stripped down and laid bare,_ sobbing and screaming all around her, _a body and soul so fragile about to shatter -_

Feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear -

 _You are me and I am you and you are me and I am you and you are me -_

The scarlet searing her eyes, the _fire_ bright and all-consuming in her veins, and for one wild vivid moment she was so very small and the scent of blood and death in her nose was overpowering and all she wanted to do was lay down and cry, in the dirt next to -

Feel nothing fear nothing -

 _You are me you are me you are me YOU ARE ME -_

\- but the blade was _in her hands_ and with everything she was she surged forward and tearing her throat was the primal scream that could shake the world, shatter everything that held her -

" _NO!"_

And all of a sudden, it was over. Her brain took...Cinder didn't know how long it was before she felt the chill on her skin and her brain caught up with the rest of her. She was out, sitting on the red earth bank and coughing up viscous black chunks. Her whole body was trembling as if it were the dead of winter, which had little to do with the hand on her back again. The scarlet, the fire, that burned away the darkness in one explosive burst...The realization that they were only in the past, had always been, was a slow one. What had taken her was more vicious than any nightmare.

"Be still. It's done."

Salem's voice was not soothing, but it was something solid to hang onto.

"You've completed the first step, and performed admirably, at that. Breathe, now."

She obeyed. Or, at least, she tried her best to, still feeling green and shaky as she hacked up the last of the stuff, spat out what lingered in her mouth. She couldn't keep what she was sure was sheer horror and shock off of her face when she looked up at her master. Her impulsive attempt to ask "What was _that?!"_ came out as a frightened, incoherent whine. Salem seemed to understand what she meant anyway.

"You didn't think that these pools were just dark matter, did you? Everything a Grimm is, all its emptiness and hunger, is in them as well. Everything you fear, it craves, and it latched onto you just as a fully-formed Grimm would."

 _Well._ That might have been nice to know _before_ she'd been dumped into the thing, Cinder thought bitterly. She looked down at herself to see that she was completely covered in the slick black sludge, but it was rapidly beading up and running itself off of her like rain down glass, to rejoin the roiling mass of the pool. It didn't stick, it didn't leave a trail or feel like much of anything, but she still shuddered as it drained from her ears and eye sockets.

"I held onto you the whole time, it was never going to truly harm you. However, it hardly matters now. You proved yourself stronger, and managed to dominate it instead. And look at what you've won."

Cinder glanced down at her body again, and saw that almost all of the sludge had made its way off of her, save for the long stringy _thing_ hanging off of what remained of her arm. She looked at it, puzzled, and gave her stump a reflexive, vigorous shake to dislodge it, too.

But the thing did not move: it was _stuck_ to her, she realized with a start. Thick near her shoulder, then thinning out, and branching into five razor-sharp white claws...She recognized the rough form of an arm and hand, a Geist's to be exact. Stunned, she tried to move the arm a little, to flex the fingers at least. Instead of responding the way she wanted it to, it twitched as if electrocuted, and something inside her _screeched_ in protest, like nails scraping down the inside of her skull.

She yelped, human hand flying to her forehead, while the arm sucked itself all at once into her stump, leaving only a sticky black coating on the end. Aside from a faint prickling at the back of her mind, and the renewed desire to throw up, she didn't feel any different than before she'd been put in the pool. But she couldn't stop staring at the end of her arm in utter shock, trying to process what had happened.

"That's about what I expected," Salem mused. "It isn't enough that you have it bonded to you, now you must work to bend it to your will. Once you've mastered it, not only will you have a working arm and hand again, but it will grant you power beyond anything you've wielded before."

Cinder gave her shoulder an attempt at a roll, and took a shallow, shaky breath. What she had felt down there was...She swallowed hard, and took another breath, forcing back the images that had assaulted her mind. It was easier than she expected; she supposed that's what years of practice did for you. Made it easy to focus on what she needed to focus on: what had made its way into her was _powerful_. If she could harness that power, channel it, make it her own -

A tiny, startled noise escaped her as she was lifted up again, that she was profoundly glad no one else was around to hear. Not that she didn't

"That will come in time, though. For now, you probably just want to sleep, don't you?"

Cinder barely even registered the amused tone. She sighed deeply, and felt it through every inch of her exhausted body. A hot shower might be nicer, but the rigmarole of needing Emerald to follow her in and make sure she didn't slip and break something else was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now. Her bed, on the other hand...

"You've done well. You deserve rest."

She only heard the first few words before she passed out, head against her master's shoulder.

~0~

Even through all his long years of service, Hazel had never been able to muster up true enthusiasm for his master's cause. But that was all right. It had been Salem's sympathy to his own vendetta that cemented his loyalty to her, and that fostered what he liked to think was mutual respect between them. So he had never had any problem with going where she told him to go, and doing what she told him to do, while he waited for the order that would bring him exactly where he wanted to be.

Taking a brief excursion to Mistral to eliminate a couple of the Huntsmen that Leo sent their way, and exchanging intel with Tyrian as the Faunus continued his search for the Spring Maiden, had been a simple errand for him. He had never delighted in the thrill of the hunt the way his teammates did, he reflected as he made his way through the halls of their home. He didn't think he'd ever fully grasped the idea to begin with.

"You're right...You're more of a persistence hunter," Cinder had mused the one time he had voiced this opinion in front of them. She'd looked at him so thoughtfully when asked to elaborate. "You don't get excited about anything. You don't run and chase. You just have one target, and you're in no hurry to reach it, because you know you will if you just keep going at your nice, steady pace. It can't outlast you forever. So you keep going, until finally you catch and kill it, and then the whole thing starts again."

If nothing else, the girl could be interesting to talk to, when she felt like it.

Hazel rounded the corner towards the training room where he'd been informed Salem was, hoping she would be just finishing up with Cinder's session so he could give his mission report and retire for the night. But no: he could hear the growling of Grimm and hissing of flame from a corridor away, and when he arrived Salem gave him only a nod of acknowledgement before turning her attention back to Cinder. Hazel crossed his arms and leaned against the arch of the entryway, watching her as well while he waited.

Once again, he recalled the countless sparring matches Cinder had fought with him and with Tyrian. Recalled how hard she had trained to get up on their level, to surpass them one day, how she had developed a fighting style that was calm, ruthless, and efficient. Well, here was the girl he had picked out of the Mistrali underground to be groomed into a warrior, all grown up. And it seemed that all at once, those seven years of careful work had all fallen away.

He watched her squaring off with a pack of Beowolves, eye flaming, baring her teeth at the biggest Grimm when it growled at her. She charged at them, fire flying from her her hands, her shiny new claws flashing out at their faces. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, to the black glass mask now in place over her scar. The dress hanging off of her unbandaged body was clearly half-finished; Cinder could spend months on a new design she wanted to work to perfection, but would never show it off before it was done, especially one this intricate, and Hazel suspected that the fact that it neatly covered the rest of her scars was the reason for the deviation.

"Do you find her lacking as well?" Salem did not look at him as she asked the question, keeping narrowed eyes fixed on Cinder. "Almost two months since she returned to combat training, and still her progress has been...slower than I had hoped."

Hazel considered it. He watched the girl mow down the Grimm, looking just as bestial as any of them. Looking just like that day when the Huntsman had cornered her in the woods, a little girl in rags playing the part of a trained killer, and she'd lashed out like a trapped animal. (And from what little she'd let on, it hadn't been the first time such a thing had happened.) He still remembered the way her eyes had burned even back then, that convinced him that there was something in there worth taking and refining. He still believed that, even today.

"She's not meeting her potential the way she used to. But that's to be expected, if she's starting from the ground back up. I expect it'll take some time, but with the right motivation, she'll be fine. And time isn't exactly something we're running low on at the moment." He paused. "If you're looking for opinions, ma'am."

"I appreciate the input."

Her tone made it clear that no more would be required, so Hazel returned all his focus to Cinder. No sooner had she finished off the Beowolves than she turned around to find a pair of Taijitu slithering up behind her. She did not hesitate, did not think, just rushed them with a strangled attempt at a yell. Hazel couldn't help but sigh.

He'd meant what he said weeks ago: whether the recovery was successful was, in the end, all up to Cinder. But he couldn't be sure she wouldn't end up taking herself downhill again. Even after all this, the girl belonged again to her rage.

 **~0~**


End file.
